


Footage Not Found

by Pop_Punk_Jolras



Category: Les Misérables (2012), Les Misérables - All Media Types, Les Misérables - Victor Hugo
Genre: Bahorel is Steve Holt, Enjolras' dead wife, Freudian Slips, I'm so sorry, Multi, always money in the banana stand, arrested development AU, everyone is a Thénardier, french jokes, fucked up family dynamics, hook hands, last names as first names, loose seals, marius as tobias
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2013-05-04
Updated: 2013-05-18
Packaged: 2017-12-10 04:02:39
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 4
Words: 22,846
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/781535
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Pop_Punk_Jolras/pseuds/Pop_Punk_Jolras
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Now the story of a wealthy family who lost everything--and the one son that had no choice but to keep them all together. </p>
<p>Or, the Arrested Development AU in which Dr. Marius Pontmercy wears cutoff shorts under his clothing, Joly has his hand bitten off by a loose seal, there's a drunk artist living in their tree (and Enjolras is trying very, very hard not to fall in love with him), Courfeyrac attempts to return a dead, frozen dove back to the pet store, Combeferre might be in love with his cousin, and--right. There's always money in the banana stand. </p>
<p>(And where Courfeyrac unsuccessfully tries releasing a rap album with a puppet, Éponine somehow cons her way into a job as a film executive, and Mr. and Mrs.  Thénardier accidentally adopt a French child, and name him "Salut", which is actually just the French word for 'Hi'.)</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Pilot

**Author's Note:**

> -First of all, I'd like to apologize profusely.  
> -Secondly, I'd like to apologize profusely again.  
> -Thirdly, I'd like to thank you for choosing to read and talk briefly about how honored I am that you even considered reading this little ol' fic of mine.  
> -Yes, that's right, folks, the Thénardiers are the Bluths. (see apologies 1&2) And if you have any episodes of AD that you want included, please let me know and I'll try to squeeze them in!  
> WARNING: This may stray slightly from the canon with the introduction of new characters and whatnot. Also, please don't ask where Ferre/George Michael's colorblindness came from.

A very wise man once said that you cannot choose your family; an even wiser one, however, said that you can at least choose to kill them.

  
This was a rule that any man would be pretty smart to live by. Therefore, a certain Enjolras Thénardier, for all he was worth, and for all his years of education and all his common sense, was stupider than a sack of potatoes, because even after nearly forty years, he had not yet killed his family--or done the maiming where maiming was due.

  
Instead, he had been working as a lapdog for his father's bed and breakfast chain for the past ten years, and still hadn't been promoted to being a partner even after he and his son had moved into one of the family model B-and-Bs in March. And it was June.

  
Enjolras and Combeferre had been sleeping in the attic of a shoddily-built, model bed and breakfast for the past four months, and yet Mr. Thénardier still hadn't made his son a partner, or even given him a real job at the company, apart from sending him on wild goose chases to some of their many hotels, checking up on health codes that they were probably definitely violating, and then too cheap to do something about.

  
But thankfully, on one bright morning in early June, everything was about to change for the better, as this was Mr. Thénardier's retirement party, and for the first time since he could remember, Enjolras Thénardier was happy.

  
And Enjolras Thénardier had a very, very good memory.

  
It was a boat party, if his memory served (it did), and much to his dismay, the entire Thénardier family had arrived to celebrate their patriarch's moving on into the gloriously boring world of retirement.

  
"Oh, sweet Heavens, look what they've done."

And this--this was his mother. Her hair was blonde and frizzy, and somehow twisted into an elaborate hairdo around a couple of twigs to show that she was"friends with the nature people”, which she, obviously, was not, because those twigs in her hair were those of the Clanwilliam Cedar tree, which is currently highly endangered and on the brink of extinction, and has been since the late 1970s. She was drunk, and she had what was probably her fifth glass of cheap champagne poised between her fingers, and her fourth glass had probably contributed greatly to the stain on her dress.

  
They called her Madame T, because the family name was long and stupid and difficult to pronounce, but Enjolras was just forced to call her ‘Mother’, as a constant, bitter reminder that that was what she was, _who_ she was, no matter how unfortunate that fact may have been.

  
She hiccuped, and repeated; “Oh sweet heavens, look what they’ve done.”

  
She was not happy.

  
“Look what the homosexuals have done to me!” she cried, before setting a hand on his forearm, “No offense, darling.” Enjolras chose to ignore this, and took a long look at her hair.

  
“You can’t just comb that out and reset it?” he asked in return, because if he said any more, he may very well have just killed her right where she stood. Currently she was upset that her husband’s retirement party was being upstaged by a group of gay protesters, chanting _we’re here! We’re queer! We want to get married on the ocean!_ as this was, naturally, a boat party, and the local yacht club had always been known for having very discriminatory policies.

  
His mother scoffed loudly and nearly spilled her drink down the front of her (absolutely garish) dress. “Everything they do is so dramatic and flamboyant. It just makes me want to set myself on fire!”

  
A second woman approached them on the boat, as this was, yet again, a boat party. I'm not sure how many times this needs to be repeated, but this was a boat party--as in, a party on a boat.

On the water. On a boat.

  
Her hair was long and blonde, and pulled back gracefully and curled. And yes, she was beautiful. Once she opened her mouth however, all of the men within a three mile radius usually seemed to just…have some family emergency they had to tend to. “Good grief, Mother! Not all homosexuals are flamboy..." She paused, and peered a little closer at the party boat. “Oh, my God, I have the exact same blouse."

  
This was Enjolras' twin sister, Cosette.

  
“I like it better on him,” their mother decided promptly, spilling her champagne again.

  
As an act of youthful defiance, Cosette had married a particularly peculiar Dr. Marius Pontmercey, who seemed to experience a very short spectrum of human emotion: complete elation, or despair that bordered on thoughts of suicide. They moved to Boston where they’d become celebrated for their wine and cheese fund-raisers.

  
Enjolras and his sister hasn't spoken in a year. Neither of them had addressed this.

  
Right about then, a man in a Hawaiian shirt stepped onto the boat, when their father had specifically specified that this was a _black tie event_ , and was currently chatting up a pretty, blonde business partner of their father's.

 

This was his older brother, Courfeyrac Oscar Thénardier, or C. O. T (pronounced 'Coat', as opposed to 'Cot', which was a childhood nickname, as well as his commonly used stage name; how it was said had been a common misconception since his childhood, and he was very touchy about it.) Most of his family had respected his naming preference. Enjolras did not.

****

[Earlier that day]

****

It was a box. All the hype for the 'act of a lifetime', and it was nothing but some stupid box with some half-assed squiggles painted on it. And Enjolras didn't know whether he ought to strangle his brother, or just set the box on fire and throw it into the ocean. "So, this is the magic trick, huh?" he asked, patting the side of the box and then yanking his hand away like  it had burned him--you never really knew with Courfeyrac; some of his tricks were as simple as throwing a dead bird at the audience, and others were filled with gasoline, and knives, and holes, and secret entries.

****

And his brother, looked like he was at the end of his rope.

****

" _Illusions_ , Enjolras!" he cried, grabbing him by the shoulders and shaking him, nearly knocking the box over. " _Illusions_!" He stepped back, crossed his arms, and lifted his chin. "A “trick” is something a whore does for money"--

 

The small crowd of children that had gathered to see the new Aztec Tomb (AKA The Squiggle Box) in action, all gasped (a particular one screamed), and covered their mo. Courfeyrac tried his best to smile, but smiling around children was something he found extremely difficult to do. "Or _candy_!" he tried. And he failed.

 

Courfeyrac had recently started the Alliance of Magicians, an organization that blackballed any performer who revealed a magician’s secret. They demanded to be taken seriously.

 

And finally, there was Joly.

 

[At the boat party...]

 

"Hey, Brother..."

****

"Hey, Joly--you know, buddy, you really don't have to do that," Enjolras offered, as his brother stood behind him and massaged his shoulders in greeting. "It's okay, alright?" He made a vain attempt to escape from his brother's vice grip.

 

Joly was the youngest of Enjolras' siblings.

****

Thanks to the family’s largesse, Joly had the opportunity to have studied everything from Native American tribal ceremonies... to cartography: the mapping of uncharted territories. Whether he was actually _successful_ in his endeavors remained a mystery, but everyone seemed to hope so, because otherwise it would have been a tremendous waste of both time and money, two things that this family  _really_ couldn't spare (which was also bullshit, moreso than Joly's love for claw machines and his"studies" on medicinal use of weed, because the family was so rich and lazy that they had more time and money than they knew what to do with. So they spent it on cartography classes and eight thousand dollar boxes.).

****

On the topic of his brother's seemingly useless education in the art of maps, Enjolras found himself compelled to ask, " Hasn’t everything already sort of been discovered, though by, like, Magellan and Cortés...?"

****

" Oh, yeah, yeah," Joly mumbled, squeezing a generous amount of hand sanitizer onto his shaking hands and spilling most of it onto the floor.

****

"Yeah, all those folks..."

****

Joly was trying very hard to not jump off the side of the boat, and the tremor in his hands had spread into his shoulders and neck. "Those guys did a pretty good job."

 

His brother, on the other hand, was simply trying very hard to sound _interested_ (trying not to jump off the boat was pretty much a given at this point). "Right."

  
Joly also suffered from crippling panic attacks, and was currently tugging on his collar and straightening out his jacket and obsessively washing his hands; it would get worse before the night was over.

  
On one particular occasion, Joly had fallen into such a bad panic at his Space Camp last summer, that he jumped out of an anti-gravity simulator in mid-simulation, (and forgot that, in the real world, what goes up must come down) had to be rushed to the hospital, and somehow managed to give himself a concussion (twice), all because some twelve year-old had sneezed and wiped his nose on his sleeve.

  
Joly Thénardier was thirty two.

  
Yes, this was his family. So, why was Enjolras so happy? Because he'd decided to never speak to these people again.

 

 

Enjolras had been feeling a lot more generous about his family on the morning of the boat party.

****

[On the morning of the boat party...]

****

" What comes before anything?" Enjolras asked, standing in the mirror and buttoning e last few buttons on his shirt. Two ties, seemingly the exact same color, hung off of his arm. "What have we always said is the most important thing?"

****

"Breakfast," replied his son, who sat perched on the edge of his sink.

****

"Family."

****

This was Combeferre, his fifteen year-old son. He laughed awkwardly. "Family, right. I thought you meant of the things you eat."

****

"I mean, we’ve made nothing but sacrifices for this family, and tonight, it all pays off, my boy. Tonight, your granddad makes me partner"-- Enjolras held up the two ties. "What do you think, son? Red? Or scarlet? And I want you to be _honest_ here, okay, buddy?"

 

Combeferre was the gentle sort--the kind to really beat around the bush to spare anyone's feelings from getting hurt. "Dad, I'm um, I'm sort of colorblind." He was also colorblind. Enjolras had not yet addressed this.

"Hey, hold on a second. Didn't your Pop-Pop say that this was more of a black tie event? Oh--be careful, kiddo. We still haven't gotten the real sinks yet."

****

Like I said earlier, to prove his dedication to the family business, Enjolras had made the decision to live here, in the model unit of his father’s latest bed and breakfast model which was, essentially, in the middle of nowhere. The guys lived in the attic so that the house could still function as a pristine selling tool.

****

"All ties really look black to me, Dad," said Combeferre as the corner of the sink broke in half and he fell onto his face, more inches away from the bathtub. His father rushed to his side, easing him into a sitting position and checking for injuries.

****

"Really, bud? You've got to be more careful," he muttered, before smiling and ruffling his son's hair. "What did I tell you. This place is really in need of reform--and tonight, when I'm made partner, I'm gonna fix this place up, and do all sorts of good things for us.  I’ll finally be able to get you what you deserve, you know? Like a real home."

****

Combeferre grabbed his father's arm and smiled. "This is a real home," he replied, hope shining in his voice. Hope, which his father casually, but unintentionally shot down.

****

"No, it’s not. It’s a fake home, son." He patted his son's knee and stood. "Come on. Breakfast. You want the loops or the flakes today?"

****

The guys then headed down to Balboa Island so Combeferre could work at the frozen banana stand his grandfather started in 1953. As he stood in the narrow, banana-shaped structure, his shirt freshly pressed, unenthusiastically shouting, "Bananas.", Combeferre realized that perhaps he needed a new summer job. Something a little more exciting: like selling ice cream, or working with rabid animals.

****

Enjolras, meanwhile, was meeting his brother Courfeyrac,  hoping to discuss his father’s boat party, and found himself waiting by the pier for an hour and a half. Finally, after a lot of time wasted sitting around and watching a homeless man chase the seagulls, Enjolras finally spotted his brother, riding a Segway with his initials embroidered on the cloth pouch that hung off the front, because Courfeyrac Oscar Thénardier was a bit too difficult to sew onto a bag that could probably only hold a wallet, a cell phone, and one of those little red books the Mormon solicitors gave out every Sunday, Tuesday, and second Saturday.

 

"Where the hell have you been?" he started, and then tripped over his own tongue for a few moments. "You know what? No. Don't answer that. Anyways, do you have your check for your share of the party?"

  
Courfeyrac stared at him long and hard, like he'd forgotten about the party entirely and hadn't prepared a check for 'his share', because he didn't know there was a 'his share' for any party at all.

  
Hint: he had. And now he was scrambling for a quick diffuser, a quick _lie_ to explain why he didn't have a check for their stupid Dad's stupid party. "You know, I sort of thought my contribution could be a magic show." Enjolras looked at him like he didn't know that Courfeyrac expected him to be impressed about something.

  
Hint: he didn't. And now he was smiling-- _grimacing_ , like their mother had after her first Botox injection (now, mind you, she hadn't been grimacing _because_ of anything; she was just unable to move her face. "Oh, that's _perfect_ , Courfeyrac." The words flew off his tongue like poisoned darts, but Courfeyrac took the smile as a sign of happiness, rather than one of hostility and heavy sarcasm. Chuffed, he leaned forward on his Segway and smiled.

 

"Thank you," he replied proudly, and--wow, would you look at that? Enjolras had a real talent for shooting _pride_ down too (really, his aim was totally spot-on).

****

"Or, wait a minute. I just remembered something—Dad’s retiring, not turning six." Courfeyrac deflated at this, like a balloon that someone had let all of the air out of (slowly--the kind where you pinch the sides and it makes this really nasty squealing sound), swallowed, regurgitated, and thrown into the ocean.

****

" Hey, come on," he whined, "I just bought this new illusion called The Aztec Tomb. It cost, like, eighteen grand."

****

"Come on," his brother fake-whined in return, "I don't care."

****

Defiant, Courfeyrac replied,  "I’m gonna do it on the boat." He then took on the look of a petulant child and frowned, staring down at his precious, embroidered Segway pouch. "Look, what do you care?"

****

"I don't."

****

His brother pretended not to hear that. "Can’t you just charge the party to the company?"

****

Enjolras looked at him like he was some sort of idiot. (Hint: he was.) " No," he started off slowly, "It's not a business expense."

"So what?" Courfeyrac retaliated, now _fondling_  his pouch, tracing his fingers over the carefully embroidered initials and making the narrator incredibly uncomfortable. "Cosette's  been staying at the Four Seas for, like, a month— _she’s_ probably charging the company. I don't see why it's a big deal if you charge the company for Dad's company- _ish_ party, and yet Cos's _getting off_ "--He paused for a dramatic emphasis at what was probably the worst possible time, but Enjolras didn't seem to notice, nor care.

****

"Wait, wait a second." He held up his hand. "Cosette's  been in town for a _month_?"

****

Courfeyrac--C.O.T, sorry-- _C.O.T_ stared down at his feet before turning over his shoulder and saying, "I don’t think so," as he courageously escaped the situation; he called it 'picking his battles'. Evidently, though, he never seemed to pick _any_ of his battles, and usually just used the Segway as a getaway car, which he then insisted that it wasn't. ("It's a getaway _Segway!_ There's a difference! It's like mixing up "tricks"...and "illusions"!" "But there really isn't a difference between tricks and illusions.")

 

Enjolras pinched the bridge of his nose. "Courfeyrac"--he began wearily, and suddenly, his older brother had rolled up right into his face, and was glaring at him with as much maturity as an impotent man-boy on a Segway could muster. Which wasn't a lot.

****

At first he looked angry, but was then almost timid as he leaned of over the handles of his Segway and whispering, "Can't you just, for once, call me C.O.T?"

****

Enjolras thought for a moment. "No."

****

C.O.T let out a defeated groan and rolled away, shouting, "You're going to rue the day you failed to call me _brother_!" and shaking his fist until he Segway-ed directly into a lamppost. "Who _put_ that there?!"

Enjolras was rather upset to hear the news about his sister, so he left his brother on the pier, and went to discuss it with his mother.

  
His mother, who was extremely upset--not about the company, or the fact that her oldest son wasn't paying for his share of her husband's retirement party, or the fact that the company may very well go belly-up, or the fact that her daughter had been staying in town for a _month_ without so much as _calling_ her brother, and then _still_ charging the company.

  
Her penthouse in Balboa Towers was far from humble, and nothing short of garishly extravagant. The couches were rather rococo, with paisley patterns and gold leafing--and there was a classic samurai sword sat in a glass box on the coffee table. Mrs. Thénardier probably didn't even _like_ half the artifacts in her apartment that she shared with her husband and youngest son--knowing her, she probably just wanted to be showy and over-the-top; to out- _rich_ her friends.

  
Enjolras poked his head in through the front door, in hopes of catching his mother in the kitchen, or parlor so he wouldn't have to venture too far inside. He wanted to get the checkbook, get the truth, and get the hell out of there. "Mom?" he called, stepping tentatively into the apartment. "Mother?" Something was horrifically amiss. There was no loud, gaudy music. His parents weren't drinking in the living room. His brother wasn't smoking pot in the closet. Something was very, very, _very_ wrong. Groaning, he shouted, "Give me your company checkbook. You’re cut off."

And that pulled the fox out of the hole. Oh God, almost literally. His mother emerged from her bedroom, her silk bathrobe tied tight around her middle and her makeup heavy and tasteless--and around her neck hung the pelt of a three-footed fox.

****

"Enjolras, look," she started off, distressed. She waved the pelt in his face. "Look what happened to my fox. Someone cut off his little foot." She draped it over her neck like so, in order to model her newest styler for him, her eyes wide with horror. "Is it... is it noticeable?"

****

He looked at her blankly,  before smiling at her with the kindness of an angry, emotionally unstable secretary and patted her arm. "Aw, Mother--you’ve got to remember, you’re going to be all splattered in red paint." And if PETA (which Mr. Thénardier constantly claimed stood for Pain In The Ass--which, when you wrote it all out, made absolutely no sense whatsoever) didn't attack his mother, he sure as hell was prepared to. "That’s really going distract the eye." He reveled in the dumbstruck horror on her face. "Anyways, I don’t want you charging any more of your personal expenses to the company."

****

"Well, I had to pay for The Aztec Tomb," she replied with a aristocratic scoff, "Your brother says it’s a career-maker."

****

Enjolras had to double-take, and now wanted more than anything to just walk onto the balcony, climb onto the edge, close his eyes, and lean. " Wait a minute—the company paid for The Aztec Tomb? That’s great. " She gave him a look that said _yes, it is_ , and it really wasn't. He wondered from whence he'd found this child's handful of patience he had for his family, and where he could get some more, as his stash was running dangerously low. "We'll, I was talking about Cosette,okay? You put her in a five-star hotel, on top of which, you didn’t even tell me that she was in town."

****

Mrs. Thénardierwas pouring herself a drink at one in the afternoon (shockingly late, by her standards), and she rolled her eyes and pressed her lips into a thin line. "If you’re saying I play favorites," she started accusingly, "You're wrong—I love all my children equally."

 

[Earlier that day...]

****

"I don’t care for C.O.T," she said absently to her youngest son as she stood by her bedroom mirror, rubbing a smudge of rogue onto her cheek. Joly hovered nervously behind her, and she glared back at him, gesturing to the open back to her dress. "Go on, zip me up!"

****

[Back in the Thénardier's penthouse...]

****

Enjolras gave his mother a dangerous look, the kind that he'd almost definitely learned from years of watching her. "Yeah, can I have that in writing?" he asked, and she set down the champagne bottle, rolling her eyes again as she took a generous swig from the glass, and, a second, from the bottle.

****

"Good grief, I dipped into the kitty a couple of times." She flicked her wrist dismissively and nearly spilled her drink. "You should be focused on tonight.  Your father's making a big announcement."

****

Now this was something of interest to Enjolras, and he  straightened his back. "Yeah? I knew it. It’s about me, isn’t it?"

****

To wink, or to close one eye suggestively whilst leaving the other eye open, is an art that takes years to master. It is also a gift that can be brought about at birth (Courfeyrac, for example, winked at the nurses the second he was born, or so the legends told--legends for which there was no photographic evidence, and every time anyone ever brought the story up in conversation, Enjolras would sit back, smirk, and declare, _"Pics or it didn't happen."_ ), and in general, there are usually two types of winkers; the sexy, effective winker, and the other winker.

****

Needless to say, Enjolras' mother was _not_ a sexy or effective winker.

****

"I wonder how I can talk you out of ever making that face again." She scowled at him, and was surely about to make that face again, had the door to the penthouse not opened with a flourish.

 

"Enjolras!" his brother-in law called enthusiastically, dropping his bags in the front hall and rushing over to greet him with a little too much enthusiasm than what was probably healthy or a man his age. "How are you?" Dr. Marius Pontmercey threw his arms around his wife's twin, hugging him with as much vigor as he would his wife, had their marriage been going well, which it hadn't.

  
Enjolras, meanwhile, was trying to figure out if there was a nice way of saying _you're awkward, you're making me feel awkward, please leave me alone_. There wasn't, so he simply patted his shoulder with an uncomfortable grimace and replied, "Good, good. " In a desperate attempt to diffuse the tension (which would serve to be in vain and only make the tension worse, he added, "How’s your job search coming along?"

  
This, had obviously struck a nerve with Marius, because he smiled, crossed her arms, sniffled, and wiped his eyes. "It's good." His voice was breaking. It was a highly embarrassing sight for anyone involved. "It's going to be good," he announced, more to assure himself than anyone else, "It’s going to be good." He dragged a hand through his hair and giggled nervously. "I'm hoping the universe provides a path for me." There was a long pause, during which he became increasingly emotional, much to the discomfort of everyone in he room. "There's a grief that can't be spoken," he finally whispered, the words high in the back of his throat. "Excuse me." He grabbed his bags and began dashing down the hallway and into Mrs. Thénardier's bedroom.

 

Marius had recently lost his medical license for administering CPR to a person who, as it turned out, was not having a heart attack. Enjolras remembered the headline clearly, (“Sleeping Tourist has Sternum Broken—East Coast Man Hospitalized by Accidental ‘Rescue"), and getting a happy call from Marius ("I'm on TV!"), and a second, more distraught one about a half an hour later ("I'm never going to get another job!")

****

Enjolras tried to be encouraging. "Maybe you’ll be inspired by the boat party tonight and start a career as a pirate," he called, half-smiling and whole-joking. Mrs. Thénardier groaned and rolled her eyes as Marius dropped his European shoulder bag (man purse)--which he claimed had been a gift from his loving, caring wife (it hadn't)--and he spun around, eyes alight.

****

"I haven’t packed for that." Marius, in spite of his lack of direction and feminine mood-swings and ladylike wrists, was a very serious, very _literal_ person.

****

As the bedroom door closed, the front door opened, and in walked Cosette, all blonde hair, blue eyes, and giant sunglasses, a giant purse slowly beginning to slide off of her shoulder and into the crook of her elbow. She was muttering to herself, something along the lines of "Couldn't find a _thing_ " when she noticed him. "Oh! Enjolras!"

She should've known better than to pull the angel-eyes act on him (the kind she probably should've stopped using when she was a teenager) and yet that was exactly what she was doing when she pushed her sunglasses to sit on the top of her head and smiled. _"Daddy, could I please have that Volvo?" "Enjii, could I please have more company money to use on a frivolous shopping spree for scarves and earrings in Quincy Market?"_

****

Enjolras realized, in that moment, that he was slowly becoming his father. And so, he locked his jaw, and greeted her with a simple nod of his head.

****

"How's your wife?" she asked, setting her bag down on the floor and smoothing out her blue, and probably rather expensive, dress. "We just got in"--

****

(He sighed. "She's dead," he replied, but she hadn't seemed to hear him.)

****

"He knows," their mother deadpaned, leaning a dangerous amount of her weight against the extravagantly cheap, unlit fireplace (which was also just there to out-rich her friends' fireplaces).

****

Cosette winced, and placed her sunglasses back on the bridge of her nose.  "A month ago." She bit her lip and breezed into the sitting room, draping herself gracefully on the white, embroidered sofa. "Oh, I’m sorry," she sang, lazily stretching her arms, "I’ve been meaning to call you, I really have."

 

"Really." He skeptically arched an eyebrow, also leaning against the shoddy fireplace. She hadn't. He knew this.

****

"Of course I have." Flipping her hair and kicking off her shoes, Cosette brought her knees to her chest and shrugged. "Things have just been really crazy with H.O.O.P."

****

"H.O.O.P?"

****

She scoffed, and looked at Enjolras like it was the most obvious thing in the world; the most likely, _predictable_ thing for her to do--like this _H.O.O.P_ had always been her absolute _livelihood_. " My anti-circumcision movement?"

****

Ah, yes. H.O.O.P. The most predictable thing for Cosette Thénardier, a self-proclaimed champion of Atheism, wife of a devout Napoleon-worshiper, daughter of--oh, right: not a Jewish family.

****

And yet--

****

[Boston, MA]

****

The event was sparsely populated, just a handful of bored gala-goers, including one very confused pre-teen with a hoola hoop around his arm and a  yarmulke staring at a purple sign reading 'H.O.O.P. HANDS OFF OUR PENISES'.

****

In the center of the small cluster of sponsors stood Cosette, holding a glass of wine and speaking with far too much enthusiasm for a married woman on the topic of circumcised penises, whose husband was certainly not circumcised. "I think it looks frightening when it’s cut off," she was saying, waving her free hand for emphasis. "It’s a Doberman— let it have its ears."

 

[The Penthouse]

****

Enjolras could have said something. He could have said that in the past few months, she and her weird, far too _intimate_ association probably saved enough skin to make ten new boys. He could have said that she had no right to go after a very _touchy_ religious groups and their partially cut-off genitalia. He could have said that she also had no right to charge the company for staying in a five-star hotel for a _month_ \--and he could have asked her why, even though she'd seen their parents and their brothers, why she hadn't called to see him. He could have called her childish, or selfish, or lazy.

****

He could've just opened his mouth, and said _things_ \--let out all those nasty _thoughts_ of his, but he didn't. He just kept his jaw clenched, and his lips pressed together as she went on enthusiastically about her nosy, and somewhat religiously oppressive charity.

****

"Believe it or not, we brought in over forty _thousand_ dollars!" She clapped her hands happily, before lowering them back into her lap and biting her lip. "Although, Mom _had_ donated most of our proceeds, and they were all from..."

****

Mrs. Thénardier cleared her throat, and Cosette was suddenly trying to find something to say to retract her previous statement, or move the conversation from the topic of H.O.O.P entirely. "How...How's your wife?"

****

Enjolras crossed his arms. "Still dead," he replied, and then threw his hands in the air in exasperation. "You know what? You guys have had your hands in the company coffer for years, but starting tomorrow, there is going to be a new boss in town, and you’re all going to have to start fending for yourselves. You’re all going to finally feel that sweet sting of sweat in your eyes as --" Suddenly, there was a loud banging of wood against animal hide, which had been gradually escalating in volume throughout his entire speech (and he had just assumed that it was the sound of his heart pounding in his ears) and Enjolras whipped his head in the direction of his younger brother, who was sitting in the hall adjacent to the sitting room on a pillow, banging the head of a handmade mallet against the surface of an ancient Native American drum with vigor.

 

 

Enjolras let out a pained sigh. "Joly--you can't can’t do that on the balcony, buddy?"

  
His brother looked at him blankly. "Mom says it's too windy."

  
Their mom, on the other hand, had returned to worrying over her stuffed fox. "Who could have done this?"

  
[The Pier]

  
While Enjolras was getting fed up with his family, Combeferre was finally getting to know them.

  
The day was hot and merciless, and yet he'd only sold about four frozen bananas in the past hour, and three of them had been to the same person (a young man in his late teens who, in all honesty, hadn't even eaten them, and just really liked saying _bananas and nuts,_ and laughed when Combeferre, after taking his order, had noted, "Wow, that's a lot of bananas.") The fourth, however, he'd sold about thirty seconds ago, to a pretty girl in a striped tee-shirt, with dark hair and dark eyes--and a very cute nose. Because a nose, he believed, was rather important to a face. I mean, just think about people without noses.

  
Now stop thinking about them.

  
Why are you still thinking about them? Anyways, Combeferre had just sold his fourth banana to the girl with the nose, and then she was back, slamming a furry lump onto the counter. "Um, yeah, " she started, pointing, "I bought a frozen banana, and when I bit into it, I found _this_."

 

Combeferre looked down at the thing, and, upon expecting it, came up with the most sophisticated thing he could say in response. "It looks like a foot."

****

She scoffed. " It tasted like a foot." It was." Which I didn’t really mind, but I’m pretty sure I said 'no nuts'." Not only was this a foot, but it was a fox's foot, which the girl had cut from her grandmother's shawl in the dead of night, in hopes of 'finding' it in a Thénardier banana, starting an outrage that would hopefully shut down the banana stand and slowly lead to the downfall of her family's business.

****

It was an act of youthful rebellion.

****

Combeferre stared at her. She stared at him. He found her intimidating, and mysterious. And attractive. And then, it hit him. "Hey, aren't you my cousin?"

****

She grinned, her nose crinkling at the bridge, her teeth straight and white. "Maybe." This was Combeferre's cousin, Éponine. She placed her elbow on the counter and leaned against it lazily. "I can't believe you recognize me." She pulled off her newsboy cap, standing on tiptoe to shove it over her cousin's head. She grinned. Combeferre was suddenly very, very nervous.

****

"Yeah--um--yeah." He laughed nervously, his eyes flickering towards the brim of the hat, and then back down to her face. "We like, never see you. We never see anybody in our family."

****

" I know, it’s our parents’ faults. We should teach them a lesson."

****

He nodded with a weary-half smile. "Yeah... yeah... " Then, he realized what he was saying, and shook his head. "No, I-I don’t think so."

****

Éponine held a thoughtful hand under her chin, before slamming her hands on the counter with a loud _smack_. Combeferre jumped. She smirked. "I've got it!" She was pure, pure evil. And there was this dark, repressed part of him (somewhere underneath his studying, and his schoolwork, and his couponing, and his sleeping bag in the attic of the model B &B) that may or may not have really,  _really_ liked that. 

 

 

"Whoa, um good, yeah, um," Combeferre replied smartly, attempting to impress his cousin with his sophistication.

****

But she was already scheming, her lips tilted crookedly and her eyebrows furrowed as she thought. "I should go to my mom tonight and be, like, 'I met the cutest guy,' and then she’ll see you and me totally making out." Combeferre laughed nervously, tilting his head back slightly. He began overcompensating for his confidence with volume, and laughed louder.

****

"Yeah..." He kept laughing. She looked completely serious. "But not really, right?"

****

"It’s _perfect_!" Éponine proclaimed, "She’d freak out, and I’d be, like, 'Mom, if we saw each other more often, this wouldn’t happen.'" Combeferre stopped laughing.

****

"But we're cousins."

****

She rolled her eyes and punched him in the arm. It hurt. He may or may not have enjoyed it. "That's why it's _funny_."

****

He laughed again. "Isn't that against the law?"

[The penthouse]

****** **

Marius, now believing the boat party to be pirate-themed...("Well, you look like a pirate!" he told himself, wrapping Cosette's pink scarf around his head, her suitcase spilled open over the side of the bed)...began searching through his wife’s luggage for an outfit. He dug through her suitcase, finally hitting the jackpot when he found exactly what he'd been looking for--a frilly, and kinda-sorta-downright _awful_ white blouse.

 

He rushed to the mirror, holding the shirt out in front of him and shaking it _fabulously_ , watching the ruffles bounce and shake, seemingly as joyous as he was. Proud of himself and his little discovery, he smugly announced, "I should say so. Look at the blouse, sir."

****** **

Then, mistaking a group of garishly dressed men for pirates,  Marius boarded a van full of homosexuals, one of which slapped him on the ass as he crawled into the crowded car. Soon, he was unwittingly part of a protest against the local yacht club.

****** **

"How are you?" he asked a tall, hairy man who was holding a sign out in front of him that read 'freedom' and wearing a basket of fruit on his head.

[The boat party]

****

"Not all homosexuals are flamboy..." She paused, and peered a little closer at the party boat. “Oh, my God, I have the exact same blouse."

****

This was Enjolras' twin sister, Cosette.

****

“I like it better on him,” their mother decided promptly, spilling her champagne again.

****

In spite of Marius' absence and the recent protests, Mr. Thénardier's retirement party had been going along swimmingly (although C.O.T _had_ shown up in an awful Hawaiian shirt, and his Dad was wearing a cowboy hat), and Enjolras' big moment finally ( _finally_ )  came.

 

His father was standing by the ice sculpture (the one of the swan, which was actually half-melted and looking a bit more like a blob with wings), and he tapped his spoon to the side of his champagne glass. Nobody seemed to notice, so he tapped the spoon against the glass again. Still, everyone was too busy chatting and drinking and watching the gays protesting outside.

****

Finally, unused to and fed up with not being noticed, Mr. Thénardier threw his glass onto the floor and grabbed the microphone. This, thankfully, was a real attention grabber, and everyone gasped and turned around, murmuring to themselves and quietly voicing the concern that the old man had finally lost his marbles.

****

"There," he began, satisfied, "See what I have to do to get the proper attention in this place? You're all fired." The murmuring stopped, and a few people even began to cry. He cleared his throat. "Man up, Jesus Christ, this is a _party_."

 

The drummer in the house band that had been playing softly behind them tapped the snare drum and cymbal in a desperate rimshot, hoping to brighten the mood. Mr. Thénardier was a little too drunk to notice, but, had he been sober, he would've fired him, too. "I give you the new C.E.O of the Thénardier Company..." he began, flicking his wrist with a flourish.

****

Enjolras grinned at his son, raising his glass to his lips in preparation to drink. "Certainly the smartest Thénardier ... my _favorite_ Thénardier... and the, uh... sexiest creature I have ever laid eyes on..." Okay. Enjolras lowered the glass. The drummer gave a dramatic drumroll. Mr. Thénardier got upset. "Stop that, you hippie-haired freak, you're fired." He cleared his throat,and flung out his arm to gesture to his wife. "My wife, everyone! The new C.E.O, your new boss! Well, not your new boss, since you're all fired..."

****

People clapped. People cried. Mrs. Thénardier screamed, and Cosette announced how great this news was going to be for H.O.O.P. Enjolras dropped his glass and it shattered onto the ground. C.O.T grabbed the nearest woman and kissed her, before finding out that it was his father's secretary, and escaped into the fray. Joly cheered and took a few extra puffs from his inhaler in celebration.

 

 

The homosexuals on the tug boat ranted.

****

Mr. Thénardier stepped aside, wrapping his arms tight around Enjolras' shoulders. He smelled of wine, sex, and urine, but Enjolras wasn't exactly planning on saying that, because there was a pretty big chance that his father already knew, and was rather proud of it. It was gross. "Sorry," he whispered into his son's ear, slurring and leaning against him, "'S not the right time."

****

[Later that night...]

****

Since Mr. Thénardier's big, fat disappointment of an announcement (no, Enjolras wasn't bitter), the rest of the party had continued to go over seemingly well, even though a frivolous, senseless alcoholic of a businesswoman was now in place at the head of the company, and most of those who were guests at the party were now unemployed.

 

Enjolras, meanwhile, had moved onto the stern of the yacht, and no, he wasn't brooding. He watched the protest on the tugboat, and listened to the newly-fired band, and tried to figure out where he'd seen this one blouse on one of the homosexuals before. Suddenly, there was a slim silhouette knifing through the shadows beside him and he turned, expecting his mother, or his sister, or someone else with a feminine profile. "Oh--Combeferre."

  
His son sat down next to him on the deck of the boat, and passed him a red, plastic cup. "It's orange juice," he explained as Enjolras observed it carelessly and downed it, "It's not--it's not alcohol."

  
"I know, son." Enjolras patted his son on the shoulder and tossed it into the ocean. The cup, evidently, ended up hitting the protester in his sister's blouse in the back of the head. "I was just pretending it was to make myself feel better."

  
Combeferre glanced back towards the party. "Are you okay?"

  
Enjolras smiled. "What? Oh, yeah, buddy, I'm fine." He wasn't. "Go ahead and have fun, okay? I hear your uncle's about to do the Aztec Box.

  
"Tomb, Dad. The Aztec Tomb."

  
His smile widened. "Whatever. Go on. And you know what?"

  
Combeferre tried to smile consolingly, but it was obvious that he'd much rather be with his cousin, who was currently at the bar, trying to flirt her way to a shot of tequila. "Um, what?"

  
Enjolras glanced back to the protestors and sighed, noting the one with the sign that read 'Freedom'--words of assurance in an hour of decisions and disappointment. "You and I, we’ve waited long enough. Time to move on. It’s the start of whole new life for us."

  
"Yeah, okay, Dad." Combeferre grinned, and Enjolras squeezed his shoulder. "I'm, um, I'm gonna go, um, I have to, uh, do, Éponine." Éponine, who had finally managed to lie her way into a virgin piña colada, which she was quite sure contained alcohol and was sipping it victoriously through a straw when her cousin re-entered the party. He leaned against the wall, and she joined him. "I guess I'm gonna see you even less now," he muttered, staring down at his shoes.

  
Éponine groaned and crossed her arms. "See?" she demanded,gesturing to her mother, who was repeating her classic _let it have its ears speech_ , and the people listening to her looked just as politely uncomfortable as the last time, "I told you we should have taught them a lesson." Suddenly, their grandfather breezed by them, and Éponine had a fantastically horrific idea.

 

"Cosette?" Mr. Thénardier called, "Cosette, darling, come on, I want you in this picture. And where's that lesbian husband of yours? I don't want his freckles making the whole thing look all spotty." She skipped up to him and kissed him on the cheek, taking his hand. And, as she was breezing carelessly past her daughter, Éponine decided to _finally_ teach her mother a lesson; she grabbed her cousin by the face, and smashed their mouths together.

****

This, evidently, was Combeferre's very first real contact with a girl, (a real _dear diary_  , scrapbook, grand slam baby book moment) cousin or not, and if my memory serves (which it does), this was right about the time when things suddenly went very, very wrong.

 

The family, sans Enjolras, who was still (not) brooding on the back deck, was posed for a photograph, Mr. Thénardier's arms around his wife's waist and his younger son's shoulder. Cosette stood front and center (typical), and Courfeyrac was vainly attempting to poke his head in over the back of his sister's head, because the spot in the photo that he'd wanted, the spot usually taken up by Enjolras, was now filled by the melting swan, and C.O.T felt dangerously out of sorts. Mr. Thénardier was saying, "Let’s see some smiles, people. It’s a party, not a shareholders’ meeting," and people were laughing. Someone else was still weeping, the gays were partying, and Combeferre was still kissing his cousin.

****

Everything seemed to be going well until someone heard the sirens. And that someone was C.O.T, the one member of the family that nobody seemed to bother to take seriously.

****

"Hey, are those police boats?" The drummer drummed out a final rimshot. "No, really, I'm serious, I think those are police boats." The crowd stopped laughing.

****

"Oh, our son," Mrs. Thénardier laughed, smiling at her audience as well as strangling her son with one hand and throwing him into the chair behind her. He coughed, ("Is that blood?") and rubbed his throat. She gestured to him with a sweep of her arm, "Isn't he just a scream?"

****

Then, there _was_ a scream--okay, a very manly shout. Over a bullhorn. By a police officer. And yes, she was extremely manly. "Prepare to be boarded," she called, her voice loud and booming like the voice of God. That was when all Hell broke loose. The partygoers began rushing to one side of the boat, causing everything to tip and slide in that direction.

 

"I knew it was against the law!" Combeferre hissed, grabbing Éponine by the shoulders and shoving her away from him.

****

Mr. Thénardier grabbed his head and groaned, grabbing his two sons by their collars and dragging them aside. "That’s the Securities and Exchange Commission," he whispered to them. Joly looked panicked. C.O.T had stolen his inhaler and was currently giving himself as many puffs of air as he could with his father's hand around his neck.

****

"They have boats?" Joly asked, and his father began digging through his pockets, muttering,

****

"Give me a cell phone."

****

Mrs. Thénardier, on the other hand, had her fingers wrapped tight around her daughter's wrist, and was gabbing hold of Joly by the sleeve as well. "Come on, you two!" she ordered, "Up to the bridge! Come on, Joly. Mighty good grief!"

****

"But--but Mom"--

****

"Now, hurry up!"

****

Joly gave his older brother one last pitiful look before he was dragged up the stairs to the top of the boat. "But C.O.T has..."

****

Mr. Thénardier had finally secured use of a cell phone from Courfeyrac, who was racing behind them as they ran through the front room of the yacht. "See, Dad?" he asked eagerly, "I'm always here for you!"

****

His father waved him off. "Not now, son--Fantine!" he barked into the phone, "Fantine, listen to me."

****

"Out of my way!" Mrs. Thénardier shouted, shoving someone out of the way and dragging her two children up the stairs, briefly passing her husband as he whispered hurriedly into the phone.

****

"Empty the accounts."

****

The matriarch and the two youngest children finally made it to the main deck, and she shoved the Captain aside, locking him out of his own chambers. "Out of my way. Out, out, out. Cosette, take the wheel." She did. "Joly, find us a channel to the ocean."

****

Joly, on the other hand, shifted nervously and tugged at his collar. "Gee," he started off shakily, "I don’t really have any of my mapping equipment with me..."

****

His sister, who had since grabbed the wheel and was steering the yacht towards the shoreline, and then back into the middle of the bay. "You’ve had eighty thousand dollars worth of cartography lessons," she shouted, "Get us a channel to the ocean."

 

"Why are you crying?" Mr. Thénardier demanded of a frantic, and assumably sobbing Fantine, " _Why are you crying?_ " He continued his trek across the boat, covering his ear and pushing his way through the crowd of people who were madly dashing to get off of the boat. "Shredder. No, save it. Save it. Shredder."

  
Joly had finally gotten a hold of one of the captain's maps, and spread it out over the window with trembling hands. "Okay, okay, so Obviously this blue part here is the land... and that would mean..." He started breathing heavily--and then faster and faster, shallower and shallower, whimpering and tugging at his collar again.

 

His mother rushed to his side, seizing him by the shoulders as he slid onto the ground. "Oh, no, Joly-- Joly, darling,  it’s alright." He continued slipping into a fetal position on the floor of the boat, panting and sniveling, "Please, don’t leave us now, you insufferable boob, please!"

 

Suddenly, Courfeyrac had an excellent idea (which was actually a horrible idea, but Enjolras was missing and Mother was indisposed--and this was taken as Courfeyrac's time to shine). "Dad," he started, sliding in front of his father and grabbing his elbow, "Dad, Dad, I have an excellent idea"--He then proceeded to lead a very irritated, very confused Mr. Thénardier towards the other side of the boat, where the Aztec Tomb was sitting and waiting.

 

"Can you hear me now? Save it"-- Mr. Thénardier covered the phone and glared at his son as he pushed open the door to the Aztec Tomb and shoving him inside. "What the hell are you doing?"

  
"Get in the tomb, Dad."

  
He gave him a look. "What?"

  
"The Aztec Tomb--come on, get in." Mr. Thénardier rolled his eyes.

  
"I don’t have time for your magic tricks."

  
" _Illusions_ , Dad," Courfeyrac cried, "You don’t have time for my _illusions_!"

 

"What is _wrong_ with you?" He slammed the door shut, successfully locking his father in his blessed Aztec Tomb--his eighteen _grand_ Aztec Tomb--and yet he could still hear Mr. Thénardier's muffled, "Why are you so angry?"

 

"Look, just stay in the box," he whispered, patting the front of the so-called-tomb in assurance, "I’ll make you disappear."

  
And, like the Titanic as it sunk to the Arctic Ocean's black, murky bottom, the band kept playing. And Enjolras sat at the stern, sipping orange juice with his eyes closed calmly, listening to the gays singinabout freedom, praying that this whole thing was just a bad dream.

  
It wasn't. And the Thénardier family dominated the news that night.

  
"Thénardier Bed and Breakfast chain president Mr. Thénardier was arrested tonight for defrauding investors, and using the company as his personal piggy bank. Guess he really _was_ , as their classic slogan says, _master of the house_. More intrigue on the high seas tonight, as dozens of local pirates were arrested for protesting the Yacht Club’s discriminatory policies."

  
Even Enjolras' brother C.O.T made the news.

 

"It was Mr. Thénardier's son, Cot, a part-time magician, who hid his father here, in The Aztec Tomb. By pushing on this pivoting panel...Perhaps a good trick for a human, but the dogs found him almost instantly."

****

Courfeyrac stared despairingly at the small television screen  in the prison waiting room. he folded his hands in his lap and sighed. "I have to think the Alliance is going to frown on this." His nephew sat awkwardly beside him, rubbing his back in what he hoped was a comforting gesture. "She didn't even get the _name_ right."

****

The family sat huddled together in plastic chairs, waiting for Enjolras to return with Mr. Thénardier after some tricky legal work. Suddenly, Cosette dropped her sunglasses and looked up. "Oh my God. Has anyone seen Marius?" Just as she spoke, a large group of tastelessly dressed men emerged from the holding area, one of whom was wearing Cosette's blouse, scarf, and gold, clip-on hoop earrings.

****

Marius dashed up to them, kissing his wife and daughter on the cheek, to both Éponine and Cosette's obvious disdain. Marius chose promptly to ignore this, and shook their shoulders gleefully. "I’m all right, gang. I’m all right."

 

Éponine rolled her eyes, muttering an unenthusiastic, "Oh, thank God."

****

"Oh, what an adventure. Oh, my goodness." His son-in-law appeared behind him with a weak, _hey, brother-in-law_ , just like he greeted everyone else. "Joly...don't do that." Marius shrugged him off and smiled. " What an adventure, gang. I thought that the homosexuals were pirates. But it turns out that most of them were actors in the local theater." He pronounced 'theater' as 'thee-ator', which should've been the first indication that something had gone horribly wrong. " You’re right though, it _is_ amazing. I’ve been waiting for the universe to provide a path for me and... and I think it has."

****

Cosette stared at him. "You're gay."

****

He suddenly burst into loud, nervous laughter, not unlike the way Combeferre laughed around his cousin; Combeferre noticed this, and made a mental note to never laugh again. "No. No. No, I’m not... I’m not gay. No. Darling, how many times must we have this...No. I want to be an actor. "

 

Mrs. Thénardier scoffed. "I'd rather he was gay." The rest of the family murmured vaguely in agreement, before abruptly standing and knocking over their chairs when Enjolras, too, emerged from the holding areas, although empty handed. "Well? What's the verdict?"

  
Enjolras rocked back on his heels and folded his arms, the corners of his mouth turning downwards in a professional scowl. "Well, they _are_ going to keep Dad in prison at least until this gets all sorted out. I'm really not in the mood to argue on his behalf at the moment anyways." His relatives stared at him blankly. "Also, the attorney said that they’re going to have to put a halt on the company’s expense account."

 

Now that, _that_ got a real, guttural reaction from the family, which gasped loudly and seemingly in unison, doing something all together probably for the first time in their lives. Their mother let out something between a sigh and a sob, and Cosette stroked her husband's hair, forgetting completely that their marriage wasn't going well. Joly took a puff from his inhaler.

  
"Interesting," he said, "I would’ve expected that after 'They’re keeping Dad in jail.'"

  
"You know," Cosette refuted, falling back into her chair and crossing her legs, putting on her sunglasses, "For all it's worth, Dad _did_ make Mom his successor."

  
And finally, it was time for Mrs. Thénardier to put her foot down--stake her claim, show that she was in control. She crossed her arms. "Yes, and I'm putting Joly in charge."

  
Enjolras covered his mouth to keep from laughing. "Joly? The guy who thought that the blue on the map was land?"

  
His mother shrugged. "He’s had business classes." It was then that Joly stood, holding his hands out in front of him and shaking his head.

  
"Oh, wait, wait, wait, wait. Eighteenth-century _agrarian_ business And anyways, you know that my passion is pre-med"--His mother, siblings, niece, and nephew watched him expectantly, and he tugged his collar. "... But I guess it’s all the same principles. Let me ask you, are you at all concerned about an uprising?"

And finally, after forty years of being pushed over, ten years of being  pushed around, and months of sleeping on the floor of a crappy attic, Enjolras had seen enough, and was finally going to do the maiming where maiming was due. "That’s it," he said, throwing his hands in the air, "I'm done. I’m sick and tired of the greed and the selfishness and all the taking. Forget it. I’ve got a son to think about. And you know, Cosette, by the way, I expected this from them because they’re completely oblivious, but you... you should know better."

 And with that, he snapped his fingers to draw his son to his side, and attempted to make The Second Most Dramatic Exit in the History of Dramatic Exits, whipping on his sunglasses and shoving his palms against both doors. They didn't budge. He did it again. Combeferre reached out gently, _pulling_ the doors instead of pulling them. Enjolras nodded, yanking the doors open and allowing Combeferre, who gave one last, fleeting look at his ~~one true love~~ cousin, to exit first. Enjolras then bowed pompously to his shocked family, and flashed them his middle finger more times than what was probably considered socially acceptable for a prison waiting room.

 

In the days that followed, Cosette had no choice but to check her family out of the hotel earlier than planned. And her husband started looking for work. In a high school. for a high school musical. Yes, it was actually that bad.

  
"My name is Dr. Marius Pontmercey. I was chief resident of psychiatry at Mass General for two years, and I did my fellowship in psycholinguistics at MIT. And this is “I’m A Bad Bad Man” from Annie Get Your Gun."

  
And so was he. It started with a lively, off-key piano intro, and, ultimately ended with Marius lying face down on the stage.

 


	2. Chapter 2

_In the next installment of **Footage Not Found** , Enjolras visits his father in jail._

  
"I quit," he announced, and his father nodded.

  
"Probably a good career move."

  
_Mrs. Thénardier finds it increasingly difficult to go about her daily life._

  
"The SEC is making him out to be some kind of mastermind, which believe me, he’s not," she informed the crowd of cameras and photographers, "The man could barely work our shredder."

  
_Joly discovers that his academic pursuits didn’t fully prepare him for his new responsibilities._

  
"Have you looked at the latest figures on the Sudden Valley expansion, vis-a-vis the development versus the tax that it..." The Executive trailed off as Joly began sinking pitifully into his chair.

  
"You guys are so smart," he whispered.

  
" ...two percent per annum, but this is a non-recoupable..." There was a familiar sound of an unconscious body hitting the floor.

  
_And the family decides to hold an intervention._

  
" I’m sorry, what exactly is this intervention for?"

  
" We need you to come back and run the business."

  
"Oh, okay. Well, then, so, technically it’s not really an intervention. It’s a little bit more of an imposition, if you think about it."

  
"Oh, whatever you want to call it."

  
"I'd love to call it an imposition. "

  
C.O.T leaned forwards in his chair, folding his hands. "We're in trouble here, Enjolras. And I can’t perform my magic. I’m getting blackballed from even the smaller venues. Like...birthday parties and stuff."

  
_On a side note, Cosette an Enjolras have their first real conversation in a really long time._

  
"This is why I didn’t call you, Enjolras, because you’re so judgmental."

  
"No, I’m not judgmental."

  
" And you’re disappointed in me."

  
He placed his hand on her knee. " I’m not disappointed in you."

  
" You are."

  
" So I’m disappointed in you, but, come on, what is not disappointing about my life? Dad didn’t give me the promotion. Dad’s in jail. How disappointing is that?"

  
"So we’re a disappointing family."

  
"We’re an incredibly disappointing family. But we are a family... and I want my son to be happy, so... maybe we should be in each other’s lives."

  
"I would like that."

  
"Are you trying to cry?"

  
"I used to be able to do this."

  
_Combeferre tries to get a little closer to his cousin._

  
"Can you believe this?" Éponine demanded, slamming her deck of cards down on the table. She crossed her arms. "They’re still fighting."

  
Combeferre nodded, shifting through his own hand casually. "Yeah, I know. I’m tempted to kiss again just so we can teach them a lesson." She gave him a look.

  
"And why would that teach them a lesson?"

  
He shrugged, snorting awkwardly and setting his cards down as well. He picked them back up. "Oh, I mean, to freak them out.

  
"Yeah? But that doesn’t make any sense," she replied, and Combeferre was, once again, laughing nervously.

  
"Well, isn’t that what makes it funny? I’m laughing. Go fish." He glanced down at his cards. "I, uh, I mean Uno."

  
_And Enjolras decides to stay in California and rescue the family business._

  
"Wish you guys didn’t have to go so soon," Combeferre mumbled, lying on his back next to C.O.T as the family engaged in a rather boring, but competitive game of Monopoly. Ponine had been winning, but she, like her Pop-Pop had probably learned to cheat, and Combeferre had already begun letting loose, having made a pretty popular joke  about Mr. T and a _get out of jail_   _free_ card. Enjolras, who had been draped over the love seat, sat up and stretched out his legs.

  
" Oh, on that subject," he said, grinning at his son, "These guys are actually going to be staying with us. For a while. Just your aunt. And her husband. Not C.O.T"

  
His eyes lit up. "Really?" His father shrugged.

  
"Yeah. What the hell, huh? Family first, right? It is going to be a little crowded though, so I think you’re going to have to share a room with your cousin."

  
And then, Combeferre realized that he may have made a terrible mistake.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> and there it is! the whole first episode of Arrested Development translated to our favorite sleazy inkeepers.   
> thank you for reading!


	3. Top Banana

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Enjolras suspects that his father is running the business from inside prison. Combeferre is made manager of the banana stand, and Enjolras gives C.O.T. a letter to mail after their mother suggests that he be included in the business. Also featuring C.O.T.'s blatant protest against a local pet store's dove return policy, and Marius sets up an audition for a local boutique's "Fire Sale" advertisement.

And now, the story of a wealthy family that lost everything, and the one son who had no choice but to try and keep them all together.

 

The family sat in the living room, all curled up together on the couch after a long day, for once actually appearing like they actually wanted to be near each other, and that, in some cases, they had actually left the comforts of the family sofa for the day. The news, as it turned out, for all its poor deliveries and shoddy weather forecasts, seemed to actually make the family happy.

 

All of this, all combined and put together, was a really a rare occurrence in the Thénardier model bed and breakfast home.

 

"Another setback for the once prominent Thénardier family as their frozen banana stand, a Newport Beach landmark, burns to the ground. A delicious whodunit... after this."

 

A week before the fire, Enjolras Thénardier was trying to save the Thénardier Company, but his father was making it difficult.

 

The prison was cold, and everything seemed to be either iron or plastic--the chairs were iron, and the bars were plastic (but painted to _look_  like iron)--it was an ingenious design, and Mr. Thénardier would have been very honored to be given the opportunity to take credit for such a seemingly clever strategy.

 

Also, orange was not his color.

"What I just don't get," Enjolras began, his voice high and regal like it always was when he was about to make a speech, much to his father's chagrin. "Is why you didn't ask me to help you." Mr. Thénardier groaned, tapping his fingers against the table, making it clear that he wasn't really in the mood for this. "You know, I parked in the same spot for the last five years. I was there on time every single day. I was so _loyal_ , I worked so hard. Why didn’t you just put me in charge?"

 

Mr. Thénardier gestured for his son to come closer, and he did; his breath stunk of cigarettes and vomit. "Son, listen to me." His voice dropped to a whisper. "These guys, the SEC, they’ve been after me for years. I put you in charge, you’re going to be wearing one of these orange jumpsuits, too."

 

" I could’ve helped you if you’d told me." Actually, no. No. If his father had told him about his issues with the SEC, Enjolras probably would have turned him in, but that was neither here nor there.

 

He shook his head. "You’d be an accomplice. No, it had to be your mom." He leaned closer, closer--a little too close. Enjolras leaned back a little. His father proceeded to lean in even closer. "They cannot arrest a husband and wife for the same crime."

 

Enjolras sat there, dumbfounded. "Wow." His father nodded slowly, placing a finger over his lips and gesturing to the guard in a silent demand for Enjolras to be quiet. "Yeah, I don’t think that that’s true, Dad," he deadpanned.

 

"Really?" Enjolras was pretending to be thoughtful. But he was a worse liar than he'd been a Peter Pan.

 

(Footnote: although he'd always wanted to look into law, his father had made it very clear that Enjolras was going to go into the family business. His only real legal experience turned out to be in the seventh grade, during a production of Murder in Neverland, a student-produced play, wherein the courageous lawyer, Peter Pan, persecuted a band of swashbuckling pirates (most of which had fallen asleep during the performance), and a young Enjolras Thénardier had sung 'You're a Crook, Captain Hook!' far too many times to count. But he _had_  counted; it was twelve.)

 

"No."

Mr. Thénardier groaned, slamming his face against the table. "I've got the worst fucking attorneys!"

 

And they did. In fact, their long-suffering family attorney had just been awarded 'Orange County's Worst Attorney' for the twenty-seventh year in a row.

 

Over the course of the next three and a half hours, Enjolras tried (and failed)to get valuable information about the company out of his father.

 

[1:30 PM]

 

"I need the flight records, Dad," he pleaded, because he'd already gotten to the point of pleading. He'd gotten _there_ ,  after a very, very short amount of time. The rest of this meeting wasn't going to end well. "I'm trying to find some money for the family."

 

His father shrugged, seemingly unconcerned. " There’s always money in the banana stand." He winked.

 

Enjolras realized where his older brother had gotten the 'sexy wink' from, but if that was the only information he was going to get out of his dad today, he might as well just give up, consider his entire life a failure, and do something absolutely _ludicrous_ \--like burn down the banana stand.

 

[2:45 PM]

 

"Dad, I really need the flight records." Enjolras watched in disgust, horror, and possibly amazement (but mostly horror and disgust) as his father licked the nooks and crannies of the wet, leaking remains of an ice cream sandwich. "Do you have any idea where you put them? Any at all?"

 

"I am having a love affair with this ice cream sandwich," Mr. Thénardier replied simply, before holding out the soggy sandwich out to him. "You want some? Take a bite."

 

[3:00 PM]

 

Enjolras reached across the table to grab his father's hand. "Please, please... The SEC has locked up our funds. These guys aren’t messing around."

 

"No touching!" barked one of the guards, brandishing a club. Enjolras pulled his hand away.

 

" So, I need you to tell me," he continued, chasing his father's wayward gaze with his own, "Were you taking vacations in the jet? Is that what you’re hiding from me?"

 

"Vacations?" Mr. Thénardier scoffed, giving his son that sleazy businessman smile--the kind they guve you when they're trying to sell you something. "I haven’t had a vacation in _years_! This is my vacation. I’m exercising, I’m sleeping well..."

 

"You’re doing _time_."

 

" I’m doing the time of my life," he replied, tossing his hands in the air.

 

"No touching!"

 

[3:17 PM]

 

A young man with incredible sideburns and crooked teeth had been walking by when he saw Enjolras and Mr. Thénardier, and paused to shake the latter’s hand, in spite of the security guard shouting _“No touching!_ ” He, too, was wearing a garish orange jumpsuit, and seemed like _that kid_ that everyone knew in high school who looked like a rat and smoked pot behind the library.

 

“Hey, Mr. T,” he greeted,and Mr. Thénardier grinned, squeezing his wrist.

“Hey, M-Dog!” He glanced to his son. “This is M-Dog, my roommate.” His voice slipped into a whispered drawl, a sotto voce, if you will. “He’s a flamer.” Enjolras didn’t know, nor care, which kind of flamer this M-Dog actually was. His father paid no heed, and smiled up at M-Dog with this fatherly look that Enjolras had been absolutely  _killing himself_ for the past forty years to be the lucky subject of. “M’s checkin’ out today!”

 

M-Dog the Flamer shrugged. “Yeah.”

 

Enjolras nodded, folding his hands. “Well, guess every vacation’s got to come to an end,” he said, and the furtive conversation that Mr. Thénardier and his precious-surrogate-son-M-Dog-no-Enjolras-wasn’t-jealous had been engaging in had stopped.

 

In fact, all conversation in the entire visiting center had stopped, and M-Dog shook his head and walked away. Mr. Thénardier sighed, shaking his head and looking at Enjolras with nothing but shame and disappointment, just like old times.

 

“Just made a fool of yourself in front of M-Dog.” He leaned back in his plastic chair and propped his bare feet up on the table. This was a sight that Enjolras never wanted to see again. “Anyway, I want you to give him a job at the company. Sales.”  
Enjolras stared at him blankly. “I’m not going to do that.”

 

“Why not?” his father asked with a whine. Enjolras stared at his hands, looking for a delicate way to put this. He looked up.

 

“Well, because...”

 

“Because he’s a flamer?” There was an accusing tone in Mr. Thénardier’s voice. “Because I told you that in confidence.”

 

[3:30 PM]

 

Enjolras was at the end of his rope. "You don’t seem to understand that I’m running this company now, Dad, and I need the flight records, and I’m going to get them with or without your help." His father, though, was too occupied with his fifteenth consecutive ice cream sandwich. "Wow, you really go through those like you go through mistresses, don't you?"

 

His father shrugged. "I take breaks in between. Anyways, listen." He leaned in, mere inches from his son's rather (very) unamused face.

 

"No touching!"

 

"Calm down, calm down!" he hollered, waving at the guard. He glanced back to Enjolras, his voice a low rasp. "Look, I--I got something we can try, all right? It’s a little risky."

 

Surprised that his father was finally cooperating, Enjolras nodded, tilting back in the iron chair. He gesticulated vaguely, in an attempt to encourage Mr. Thénardier to go on. "Please."

 

Mr. Thénardier stepped back, ripping off a piece of his ice cream sandwich. "Open up."

 

"Dad, please, I'm trying to be serious"--Mr. Thénardier tossed the little glob of melted ice cream and soggy cookie towards his son's open mouth, but missed, hitting him in the eye.

 

That was as productive as their meeting got. And on his way out of the prison, Enjolras was considering researching the fastest, most painless way to commit suicide. This was, of course, as his research found, drowning, but a traumatic childhood incident involving his father, a shark, and a man with one arm had scarred him for life and encouraged his fear of open bodies of water.

 

While Mr.Thénardier was losing a roommate, however, Combeferre was having a hard time adjusting to his new one.

 

Since the rest of the family (except for Mrs. Thénardier, Joly, and C.O.T., who was continuously staying in the model anyways) moved into Mr. Thénardier’s model B&B, Combeferre and Enjolras had moved out of the attic and into two of the three bedrooms. His new “bedroom” had a set of bunk beds, with these awful red, white, and blue astronaut bedspreads that he didn't want to admit that he liked. Éponine had immediately claimed the top bunk, to which Combeferre had awkwardly replied, “It’s okay--you can have it, I mean, I like bottoming. I--I like being on the bottom--no, not like, uh, I...like the bottom bunk.”

 

Every morning began the same way; she’d awaken him by jumping down from her bunk onto his legs, and continuing to bounce on his body, heels digging into his stomach, screaming, “Get up! Get up! Get up!” until he started to sob and screamed out that he _was_ up, and yet she would still continue to jump on him.

 

It was the worst when they were in the car, the whole family jammed into the back seat, and Marius would grab his daughter’s waist and say the words that now haunted Combeferre’s feverish teenaged nightmares:

 

“Ponine, honey? Okay, we are just about ass-to-ankles back here. Do you want to hop on your cousin’s lap there, please?” And she would, shifting and planting herself right between Combeferre’s unsuspecting legs and Jesus Christ. He woke up screaming every time Enjolras, at the wheel, paused and announced,

 

“Whoa, bumpy road ahead.”

 

So, of course, Combeferre, being the straightforward, no-nonsense man he was,  and wearing his yellow (??? he didn't really know what yellow looked like)  ‘T-Banana’ shirt and khakis, drinking a glass of orange juice and trying to hold back his rush of  ~~completely platonic~~  hormones, addressed his problem head-on.

 

“Dad,” he announced, setting his orange juice down on the counter. His father set down his briefcase, looking at him expectantly, and Combeferre suddenly felt very in the spotlight and more than a little uncomfortable. He cleared his throat. “Dad, I want to work more hours at the banana stand.” The words came out in a rush of held breath and _I think I may be in love with my cousin so I’d like to work more so I can get away from her please, please understand and don’t send me off to reform school._ Whatever way Combeferre had expected his father to react was not  the way he reacted, and he was kind of relieved. Enjolras smiled, something he didn’t do all that often.

 

“Wow, son--Combeferre, that’s a really mature thing of you to say. I'm so proud of you.” He patted Combeferre’s shoulder, ignoring the way his son tensed under his touch. “You know, I used to be just like you when I was a kid. I used to love it there. I have all sorts of great memories of that place.”

****

[Footage not found]

****

Enjolras had “loved” his work at the family banana stand, because he’d bleached his memory of it entirely. If he had, however, dug deep into the darkest parts of his mind (the ones that held memories of his father in a wig and his older brother in skinny jeans--the eighties were a  tough time for everyone), he would find nothing but the smell of burnt chocolate, douchebags in leather jackets who liked saying _bananas and nuts,_ and Mr.  Thénardier’s triumphant cry,

****

_“It’s going to be our best summer ever, Enjii!”_

 

Enjolras shuddered involuntarily at the lack of memory, and squeezed Combeferre’s shoulder. “Well, I’ll tell you what.” He reached down to adjust the boy’s gold-plastic nametag. “I’m going to give you a promotion.”

****

Combeferre’s eyes lit up, and for the first time in a while, Enjolras felt like he was doing something right. “Really?”

****

“Of course! Welcome aboard, Mr. Manager!”

****

“Wow!” He adjusted his spectacles and beamed, his back straight and smile blinding. “I’m Mr. Manager!”

****

Enjolras bit his lip, straightening Combeferre’s nametag again. “Well, manager. We just say manager.” Combeferre’s smile didn’t falter, but he had the eyes of a broken man. “And,” he continued, fixing his own tie and patting his son on the shoulder one last time, “You can hire an employee, if you need one.”

****

“Do you think I need one?” he asked, ready to start taking notes, putting out help-wanted ads, reading through job applications, organizing interviews and inventing several team-bonding games and activities. His father shrugged.

****

“Don’t look at me, Mr. Manager.”

 

Feeling a sense of pride in himself, Combeferre sat down at the breakfast bar and nodded, trying to find a professional way to fold his hands. Thumb on the top? Or tucked inside? He couldn’t tell which looked more _Mr. Manager_. “Right,” he said in his best _Mr. Manager_ voice, “It’s up to me now. I’m Mr. Manager.” His father looked at him and shook his head, reminding him that _we just say ‘manager’, bud_. “I know, but you...”

 

Enjolras gave him a tender look. “Doesn’t matter who.” He opened the fridge, in search of something to eat and finding nothing but a carton of orange juice and a paper bag. He picked up the bag, hearing it crinkle in his hand, and turned it over, noting that there was a little, orange sticky note stuck to it reading _Dead Dove. Do not eat._ Of course, he opened the bag, listening to it crinkle yet again, and peered inside. He looked up. He closed the bag. He set it on the kitchen table. “I don’t know what I expected.”He stormed into the living room, leaving Combeferre to look after the dove and figure out where he was supposed to put his thumbs. Marius was curled up on the loveseat in a light blue bathrobe what had a cursive C embroidered over the breast pocket, and Cosette was curled up beside him. Courfeyrac was lying face down on the loveseat, and Éponine was nowhere to be found. He placed his hands his hips. “What’s going on?” he demanded, frowning, “ This is exactly where the three of you were when I left this morning.” They stared at him like he wanted them to say something. He did. They continued to stare at him blankly. “Is nobody going to even try to get a job?”

 

His sister scoffed, and stroked Marius’ neck lovingly.

****

“I _have_ a job, Enjolras,” she replied, rolling her eyes, “It’s called 'supporting my husband'.”

****

He tapped his foot impatiently, coming to the point where he was just ridiculously fed up with all these people and all their bullshit. “You certainly haven’t been shopping. The only thing I found in the freezer was a dead dove in a bag.”

****

“You didn’t eat that, did you?” C.O.T. asked, shifting on the loveseat until he was lying upside down, black curls flopping into his face, “ ‘Cause I’ve only got a couple days left to return it. It died right in the middle of a show.”

****

[The local Pet Shop, Yesterday]

****

“Do you want a cage for that?” the shop’s owner asked, watching Courfeyrac slip the dove inside of his jacket. He, in return, began laughing at the storekeeper for an uncomfortable amount of time (until he was practically in tears), while the man looked on in confusion.

****

“A cage?” He dropped the act, his face falling and eyes darkening with seriously serious seriousness. “No. I’m a magician.” And with that, he closed his jacket over the cooing dove, cradling it against his midsection carefully and walking towards the door.

****

Then, he walked _into_ the door, and not-so-silently wondered who had put it there. There was a thud, and the little bell hanging from the door jam twinkled mournfully.  The cooing stopped. We were all reminded of the morbid poem, “For Whom the Bell Tolls”. Courfeyrac glanced back at the shopkeeper.

****

“What’s your return policy, by the way?”

 

[The Model]

 

“Not that I have to defend myself,” Cosette continued, stretching out on the couch and flipping her hair. Marius nuzzled into her and she tried very, very hard to shove him away from her nicely, but found it very, very hard to do. She pointed to a little paper shopping bag with her toe. “But I _did_ go shopping.”

 

Enjolras snatched the bag, opening it and pulling out a small bottle, sighing and pinching the bridge of his nose. “You spent sixty-eight dollars on hair conditioner?”

 

She leaned back. “Small price to pay for self-esteem, Enjolras.” Her eyes narrowed, with a devilish glint--one that she’d inherited from her mother, and had then passed onto her daughter. It was the look people gave when they knew something you didn’t, or were thinking about you in your weakest hour. It was the blackmail-in-the-making look. “Or are you still jealous that you lost “best hair” to me in high school and got “dorkiest”?”

 

[Enjolras and Cosette’s Senior Award Ceremony, 1980-something]

“And can we have a round of applause for our winner for “best hair”, Cosette Thénardier!” The clapping and cat-calling echoed throughout the small gymnasium, because yes, they’d held their Senior Award Ceremony in the gymnasium. Once again, the eighties were pretty hard for everyone. She dashed up to accept her award, her hair frizzed out in about a thousand different directions. She was wearing tall, lime green pumps, hot pink leggings, an orange miniskirt and a neon blue sweater that she’d cut the collar out of, like every other teenaged girl who’d gone to see _Dirty Dancing_. Her large, gold hoop earrings bounced as she ran back to her seat.

 

For the next award, the presenter sighed and slouched, grinding his teeth. “And, for “most likely to succeed”, the nominees are...actually, no, it doesn’t matter who the nominees are. Enjolras Thénardier.” No one had clapped for him, and as he walked up to accept his award, a voice that sounded eerily similar to his own father’s cried out ‘Dork!’

 

[The Model]

****

Cosette’s achievements in high school had always overshadowed Enjolras’.

 

“ I agree with Enjolras,” Marius explained, standing up and pacing the living room with several sweeping arm gestures. “It’s important not to tie your self-esteem to how you look or what people think of you. I mean, look at me— I’m an actor.” He let out something between a laugh and a sob. “An _actor_ , for crying out loud! You know how much rejection I face every day? But in this business of show, you have to have the heart of an angel and the hide...” He held a hand out in front of his face thoughtfully, and paused for emphasis. “...of an elephant.”

 

“But,” Cosette countered, “You’ve never actually had an audition.”

 

Marius scoffed, throwing his hands in the air. “Well... _excuuuuuuuuse_ me!” His throat began to close and his voice did that Muppet-y thing that it did when he was about to cry that made everyone really uncomfortable. He glanced down at his slippers. “Excuse me.” And, with that, he vanished up the stairs, much to his wife’s relief. Enjolras watched him leave, and then stared pointedly at her, pinning her down like a dead dove under his gaze.

 

“Some really great spousal support you’ve got going there,” he told her, and she looked at him like she was about to agree. And it drove him out of his _mind_. “You know something, Cosette?” he demanded, “You might want to start thinking about the example you’re setting for your daughter, unless you want her to end up just like you.”

 

“Yeah, shoot me when that happens,” muttered a disgruntled Éponine as she rolled out from beneath the sofa, cell phone in hand. Enjolras stared at her incredulously.

 

“Is there a carbon monoxide leak in this house?” he asked, before pointing to the kitchen and crooking his finger. “Son, come here.” This, like always, drew Combeferre to his side like a magnet, or an untrained labradoodle. “Combeferre,” he started, not noticing how the boy’s ears perked in attention, “You’re taking your cousin to work today. That’s your new employee. I do not want my niece to end up just like everyone in this family.” Éponine snorted, and Combeferre looked absolutely mortified.

 

This caused Cosette to scoff and cross her arms. “You’re not telling my daughter what to do,” she protested, sitting up and flipping her hair, “She’s a child.”

 

At the accusation of being a child, Éponine cut in, mostly to piss her mother off, which she did. “No, I’m not. I can work. I’m okay with this.”

 

Combeferre, on the other hand, was as far from okay with _this_ , or with any idea of the concept of _this_ , whatever _this_ was. “Uh, I-I don’t know about this.” He cleared his throat, and tugged at his collar, and adjusted his glasses, and folded his hands _Mr. Manager_ style (one thumb tucked in, one folded outward over his knuckles.) “You know, it can get pretty hairy in there.”

 

Finally admitting defeat, Cosette leaned back against the sofa and tried not to care. “Fine. Do what you want. If I know my daughter, that stand won’t be there in a week.”

 

And she was right. It wasn’t.

 

“You stay on top of her, buddy,” Enjolras instructed, patting his son on the shoulder, and don’t be afraid to ride her. _Hard_.” Combeferre was looking increasingly more scandalized, and was wondering whether or not stabbing himself with one of the bananas would be considered an honorable suicide.

 

The day was warm, bordering on hot, or even near-scalding, depending on your skin type--Combeferre burned like a lobster (or someone’s hand on a signature Thénardier Cornballer--we’ll get there. Don’t ask. Don’t even think about it. Why are you still thinking about it? I said _we’d get there, you impotent man-boy._ ), so to him, it was scalding. But his cousin had such smooth, pretty, olive-tan skin (that he really wanted to touch with his tongue), and she probably just saw the Californian heat as _balmy_. The two of them stood, cramped in the small banana stand that was _really only meant for one person_ , and, in all, Combeferre’s attempt to distance himself from his cousin proved... unsuccessful.

 

“ I can’t tell you how many health codes you’re violating right now,” he said, his throat tight around his vocal chords as Éponine dipped her fingers in the vat of melted chocolate that was _meant_ to be for the bananas, licking them carelessly. She wiped her mouth with the back of her hand, and then proceeded to lick that, too.

 

“I can’t believe I volunteered for this,” she muttered, leaning against the counter and crossing her arms with a huff. “This is my stupidest rebellion ever.” Then, her mother’s blackmail-glint appeared in her sparkling brown eyes. “Hey,” she started, grabbing her cousin by the arm. He jumped. She didn’t notice, because she was too busy popping open the cash drawer and grabbing handfuls of dollar bills.“You want to go play skee-ball?”

 

Combeferre stood over her shoulder, watching, and no, he wasn’t doing this just so he could smell her neck. “Well, this is the cash drawer,” he explained, “My dad’s going to come by at the end of the weekend, and the number of bananas has to match the amount of money in here.”

****

“So it all has to even out?” she asked, her eyes still glittering with that _I am going to make you do so many naughty things_ look that Combeferre didn’t know he liked until now, but was kind-of-sort-of okay with. As in, he was very okay with it. Very, very okay.

****

“Exactly.” It came out as a squeak, and he covered his mouth as he attempted to get his breathing in check. He coughed a few times to lower his voice to a more manly pitch, which turned out sounding 100% squeakier than it had before. Again, Éponine was ignoring her cousin’s numerous efforts to impress her with his more masculine assets, because he didn’t have any. “What are you doing?!”

****

“It’s simple,” she replied, breaking a banana from its hand and tossing it into the trashcan, taking a dollar from the drawer. “You take a banana, you take a buck, see?” She threw out a whole hand, “Banana,” and grabbed another handful of single bills, “Buck.” She continued to this until the cash drawer was almost empty, and the stand void of nearly all of its bananas.

 

Enjolras, on the other hand, had gone to his mother, in hopes of finding the flight records that his father had refused to give him. He found her in the kitchen, a martini in one hand, the home phone in the other. Her fox pelt from the night of the boat party had since been forgotten, and was now draped over one of the chairs in the living room, all four of its little feet cut off. His mother was drunk and shouting, her cheeks flushed and hair untamed. “Then why don’t you just _marry_ an ice cream sandwich?!” she screeched, “Honestly, you’re just”--She caught sight of Enjolras, and he caught sight of her, and they stared at her for a while before she turned her head, muttered, “I’ve got to go,” and hung up the phone.

****

He had been planning to stalk up on her slowly and tentatively like a tiger stalking an antelope, but instead, he leaned against the wall and narrowed his eyes. “Who was that?” She stared at him, all too unwilling to talk. “Was that Dad?”

****

“That was C.O.T.,” she replied simply, setting her drink down. His smile was more skeptical than smiley.

****

“Uh-huh.” He sat down at the kitchen table, and she stood on the other side, looking bigger than him, smarter than him, and he now had his mind set on proving that that was not true, no matter what it took. “So, Mom, I’m trying to find...”

****

“I don’t know where they are,” she replied instantly.

 

He nodded. “ ...these flight records.” He folded his hands, one thumb in and one thumb out, _Mr-although-we-all-just-say-manager_ style, and looked up at her with an insistent glint in his eye not unlike his sister’s blackmail look, which was actually his mother’s blackmail look. “You know, it’s really more believable if you let me finish.” She sat down, grabbing her drink and throwing it back. Enjolras’ blood boiled, and he glared at her across the table. “Why am I the only one that seems to get how much trouble this family is in?”

 

Mrs. T gave him a look, and sighed, letting out a heavy breath that sucked all the air out of her lungs.” Oh, I get it, Enjolras.” She took a generous swig from her martini and sucked on the olive, pushing it around in her mouth from cheek to cheek, under her tongue, and so on. “ I get it. But how should I know where the records are kept? Your father’s in charge of all that.” And there it was--playing dumb. Playing the victim. Playing coy, and he didn’t believe a damn second of it.

 

“No,” he replied, straightening his back, “ _I’m_ in charge of all that.” Enjolras leaned across the table, ensaring his mother in a dangerous staredown that she was probably going to win, regardless of his efforts. “And I think you know where they are.”

 

She flicked her wrist and scoffed. “Oh, probably in a storage unit somewhere.”

 

For the first time today, Enjolras was actually getting somewhere, and was actually feeling a little bit smug about it. “Right. So where’s the storage unit?”

 

She thought for a moment, before pouting and flatly replying, “I don’t know.”

 

Right. And now he was right back to square one, right back to M-Dog and the ice cream sandwiches. Back to home-fucking-base, back to the small, ridiculously tiny one-celled organism that was the basis of all life on Earth. “Try.”

 

And she did. First, it was Something-Dale. Then, it was Brookfeather, and then Raintree, and a thousand other places _that didn’t actually exist_. She’d never been there before. She’d only been there once. It was on the East Coast. It could be as far west as _Japan_. It was too hot there--it could be somewhere down south, like Mexico, or Antarctica. But it was so cold, so it could be as far north as _Canada. Get a warrant._

 

“Don’t think I won’t,” he snapped; he was getting fed up with this. “Mother, I care about this family.” And he was probably the only one who did.

 

His mother sighed. “And I do too, my darling. That’s why I’m worried about C.O.T.” She stood, walking around the table to massage her son’s shoulders. He was getting less and less angry with her with every second that went by, and every press of her thumb right _there_. He hummed contentedly and his eyes slipped shut. “I was on the phone with him this morning...”

 

He opened one eye. “You mean just now, right? When I came in?” His mother pressed her thumbs in harder, and he jumped before relaxing again. _  
_

“Yes,” she crooned, “Just now, when you came in. And he’s upset.” She leaned down to peck him on the cheek. “He’s very upset, Enjolras.” She continued kneading his shoulders roughly, targeting all the lumps, and knots, and kinks that plagued his muscles endlessly. “You haven’t included him in the business at all. He’s your older brother.” Mrs. Thénardier Thénardier  punctuated each word with a squeeze of his shoulders. “Come on, darling, just give him a chance. Make him feel special.”

 

Enjolras hummed, tilting his head back. “But he’s not special, Mother.” She pressed a kiss to his forehead and smiled.

 

“No.” She stroked his cheek lovingly. “But he loves you. We all do.” Enjolras, starting to see what she was doing here, sat up, looking at her.

 

“Where’s the storage unit.” His mother smacked him in the back of the head so hard that he almost fell out of his chair.

 

“It’s with your warrant,” she snapped, throwing her drink in his face.

 

The next day, Marius looked for work, and for the first time, he had arranged an audition for a local commercial. Cosette came along to appear supportive, and was now sitting in the waiting room with him in one of the plastic chairs, her sunglasses perched atop her head, twisting one long curl of blonde hair around her finger. Marius, on the other hand, was looking much like himself (a “freckled lesbian” , as his loving father in law--who didn’t want him to call him ‘Daddy’, but he still did--had once referred to him as. It stuck, and in the early days of his acting career (yesterday), he’d made series of headshots which he then hung in public places for press, with the headline “Freckled Lesbian Takes the World by Storm”), save for the fact that he’d put a considerable amount of his wife’s stolen makeup over his freckles because “Cover those up, you look like a potato”. When the secretary called his name, he jumped to his feet and kissed Cosette on the cheek, who looked at him like he was a potato again. “This could take a while,” he assured her, and she rolled her eyes, stretching out her legs and then crossing them.

 

“Honey,” she started, picking at her skirt, “It’s one line.”

 

Marius smiled so hard that you could almost see his freckles through his (her) makeup. He kissed her again. “Not if I do my job right.”

 

The audition was held in a small room with nothing but the employer's desk, and a plastic chair. Marius’ heart dropped--he’d been expecting a place with more props for him to work with, but he supposed that this was a good time to experiment with physical theater. “First of all,” he told the man at the desk, the script squeezed into his excited fist. His hands were shaking. “I love it. Quick question, though”--The man at the desk sighed heavily, but nodded; after all, this guy couldn’t be any worse an actor than the ones that were in here earlier. (He was.) “Am I panicked about the fire? Or am I being brave for everyone else?”

 

The man looked at him blankly. “The fire?” he asked, puzzled, “It’s a fire _sale_.” Marius had, again, not anticipated this. Shifting awkwardly from foot to foot in a weird kind of warm up, he cleared his throat, and stared down at the script.

 

“Oh... Okay. I didn’t, um...” He chuckled, trying with all the willpower he had not to just start crying. “Well, let’s give it a shot.”

 

This was the lowest point in Marius’ acting career.

 

“Oh, my God, we’re having a fire!” he screamed, before pausing and glancing at the script. “Sale.”

 

The rest of the audition went as follows:

 

“Oh, the burning! It burns me!”

 

“EVACUATE ALL THE SCHOOLCHILDREN!”

 

(In a fetal position on the floor) “AMAAAAAAAA”--

 

“This isn’t a fever!”

 

“ZIIIIIING GRAAAAAACE!”

 

(On his knees, pawing at the door, sobbing) “I can’t even see where the knob is!”

 

This audition ended much like his previous one, with Marius lying face down on the floor, although this time, he’d assumably “died” from smoke exposure, and wasn’t just fainting because he was nervous. Okay, maybe the nerves were playing a really _small_ part, but that was only because his wife was outside, and the thought of her hearing him and falling in love with him all over again, in awe of his acting skills, made him a little jittery. “And, scene,” he announced with a brisk sigh, standing up.

 

She wasn’t. And the man at the desk casting the commercial wasn’t either.

 

“Would you like to try that a little...simpler, maybe?” he asked, his hands folded _Mr. Manager_ style.

 

Marius stared at him blankly for a moment, and then nodded. “No.”

 

The man nodded, and stood, heading over to the door and leaving Marius high and dry with the script; he was rather proud of himself, as a matter of fact. He considered this a major victory. It wasn’t. “Okay,” the man started, poking his head outside the office door and into the waiting room, “Anybody else?” Then, he caught sight of Cosette. “Cosette Thénardier?” he asked, astonished, and she jumped up from her chair, hugging him.

 

“It’s....it’s Pontmercy,” Marius cut in, hanging in the doorway.

 

“Bossuet l'Aigle!” Cosette squeezed Bossuet l'Aigle’s arms and smiled. “Wow, I just...I can’t believe it’s you.” She leaned over and pinched her husband’s cheek. “Honey, Bossuet was my male counterpart in high school.” Her friend nodded proudly. “Remember how crazy our hair was back then?”

 

And yes, Bossuet remembered how crazy his hair was, because those memories were all he had left. Bossuet l’Aigle was now bald, due to a horrific incident with a hair straightener in the early nineties, which had burned off all of his hair. It had failed to grow back, but he’d kind of expected it to happen sooner or later; in high school, Bossuet had also won the award for “Unluckiest”. “Yeah,” he chuckled, leaning against the doorframe and glancing back into his office at the ceiling fan, which would later fall on top of him and shatter his spine once Marius and Cosette were safe and unsuspecting at home.

 

“So, uh,” Cosette leaned against the doorframe also, flipping the hair she was famous for. “What’re you doing now?”

 

Marius cleared his throat. “He’s, uh, he’s casting my commercial, dearest.” Bossuet nodded mournfully.

 

“Yeah, the South Coast Boutique is having a fire sale.”A sigh. “I haven’t had much luck,” he lamented, and Cosette punched him in the shoulder (which then dislocated).

 

“Well, what else did you expect?” she giggled, and then came to a full halt. “The South Coast Boutique?” she asked chipperly, eyes wide with interest, “They’re having a fire sale?” Bossuet l’Aigle looked at her then like all of his birthdays, Christmases, and injury-free celebrations had come all at once.

 

Enjolras, meanwhile, had finally, after countless laborious tasks in doing so, had finally gotten a hold of the location of the flight records, and arrived at the storage unit, only to find that it was on fire. This was the first of  two Thénardier family institutions to burn to the ground in that week. It was a pretty big storage unit, and therefore, someone must’ve taken some pretty big measures to make sure that all evidence within its burning walls were destroyed.

 

“Excuse me, excuse me, hey!” Enjolras grabbed one of the many firemen on the scene by the arm (although many of these firemen were just standing there, watching the storage unit, and the flight records inside of it that Enjolras so desperately needed, blaze) “Excuse me, what the hell is going on here?”

 

He knew _exactly_ what was going on here. It was his father, trying to run the company from prison.

 

“Looks like someone really wanted this place to go,” the fireman replied, holding his hose and yet not doing anything with it. It wasn’t worth it. The flight records were gone. Enjolras’ life was over.

 

“Yes, I caught that.” He crossed his arms and sighed. “What do you think? Arson?”

 

The fireman laughed. “Oh, definitely the work of a flamer.”

 

[3:17 PM, Yesterday]

 

“Hey, M-Dog!” He glanced to his son. “This is M-Dog, my roommate.” His voice slipped into a whispered drawl, a sotto voce, if you will. “He’s a flamer.” Enjolras didn’t know, nor care, which kind of flamer this M-Dog actually was. His father paid no heed, and smiled up at M-Dog with this fatherly look that Enjolras had been _killing himself_ for the past forty years to be the lucky subject of. “M’s checkin’ out today!”

_**** _

[The Fire]

_**** _

Enjolras nodded. “Right.”

_**** _

Back at the model B&B, Cosette was grabbing him by the hands and squealing in his ear, and Marius was sitting at the breakfast bar, his face in his hands. “Is shoots tomorrow,” she explained, her voice quickly escalating in pitch and volume out of excitement, “And, are you ready for this? It pays a thousand bucks!” She let out a high pitched sonar chirp of excitement, and jostled his shoulders so hard that he felt his eyeballs roll into the back of his head.

_**** _

“That’s, uh, that’s great, Cosette, but you’re kind of giving me a concussion”--He steadied her, and she bit her smiling lips. “But, wait a second--wasn’t that supposed to be your part, Marius?”

 

Marius was in a state of despair. It was like the broken sternum incident: unpretty, uncomfortable, and rapidly escalating into something dangerous. He lifted his head and smiled, his eyes broken and red, puffy around the edges. His nose looked bigger than usual, and his chin crinkled in that weird, angry Kermit the Frog way it always did when he was trying not to cry. But Enjolras had come to one conclusion about Marius over the years: he was always going to cry, in the end, no matter how much he tried not to. His lips trembled. “Yeah,” he mumbled, “No, no--I didn’t book this one. I think I made the fire a little too real for them, and...failed to highlight the sale. And, uh, I’ve been pretty busy anyways, with um...getting my headshots done and stuff. So, uh...” He squeezed her arm. “Good for you,sweetheart.” She beamed, and he let out something that was both a laugh and a sob. “Will you excuse me, please?”

_**** _

Marius vanished up the stairs, and Enjolras stared at his sister incredulously, because she was flipping her hair and saying, “I don’t know why you aren’t happy for me, Enjolras. I’m your _sister._ ” He set a jaded hand on her shoulder, hoping that it would soothe her; it didn’t.

 

He sighed. “Well, listen, that’s great, Cosette. But, I’ve got my own problems. The flight records, they’ve burned up, okay? That’s fine. That’s over with. But I think Dad is behind it. I think Dad is trying to run the business from prison.” She stared at him blankly, her eyes not entirely empty, but rather, unfocused, like she was too caught up in thinking about the smell of her own hair conditioner to listen to him. Which she was. “Cosette. Are you listening to me at all?”

_**** _

“No,” she replied simply, sitting down at the kitchen counter and flipping her hair.

_**** _

He was getting to that point--that very special unhappy place usually reserved for interactions with his father--and he glared at her, about this close to tearing his hair out and throwing it in her face. “ _Dad_ ,” he started, seating himself across from her, “Is trying to run the _company_ , from _prison_.”

 

Cosette tossed back her head and laughed, taking a few moments to continue to fake-laugh so she’d have more time to shake her hair. It was uncomfortable. “Well, isn’t that ironic?” she asked, crossing her ankles and grinning, “I’m making a fortune at my new job, and you don’t even have the job you thought you did.”

 

Enjolras rolled his eyes. There was a plate of fake fruit in the center of the table, and he picked up one of the plastic apples (that Marius had made an attempt to eat on many an occasion), juggling it out of boredom. “But,” he warned her, because sometimes she thought too quickly, and other times she didn’t think much at all, “You don’t have a job.” Now, it was her turn to glare. “You’ve got a job offer. Anyone can get a job offer.”

 

Upstairs, Marius was sobbing in the shower.

 

“Anyways,” Enjolras continued, trying to ignore the dying whale noises coming from the upper level of the model, “I’m going to see Dad-- _again_.”

 

“Did you get anything out of him last time?” she asked. He sighed.

_**** _

“Besides the fact that he eats  far too many ice cream sandwiches than what’s considered socially acceptable?” Enjolras dropped his head onto the table. “No.” He stared at the granite countertop that probably wasn’t even granite (although installing fake granite probably took more effort than installing regular granite), and the uniformity of the speckled surface was giving him a headache. “But I’m going to try yet again, and keep on trying because this is my business to run.”

_**** _

“ _Your_ business?”

_**** _

Enjolras had known exactly how long his older brother had been hiding behind the open refrigerator door, listening in on their “discourse”, which mostly consisted of Enjolras talking to himself and Cosette not listening. But he was going to give C.O.T. the satisfaction of thinking he was sneaky and act like he was surprised/happy to see him there. “Oh, hey, there you are, C.O.T.! I’m so glad to see you.”

_**** _

He wasn’t. C.O.T. figured this out pretty quickly. He narrowed his eyes. “You used my name.” He narrowed them further. “You want something from me.”  

_**** _

Enjolras wanted to cry. “Yes, Courfeyrac. Yes, I do.” He heaved a sigh, sitting up and running a hand over his face. “It’s not so much of a want, as a need. I _need_ you to do something for me. Please.”

 

This was giving C.O.T. quite the ego boost. But his eyes were now so narrowed that it was probably giving him a headache. He glanced his squinty eyes at the crinkly paper bag in his hand and frowned, just as intensely as he had been narrowing his eyes. Now, his face hurt. C.O.T. was having a really bad day. “Well, I was planning on returning this dove.”

****

His brother sighed. He didn’t know what he expected.

****

“But what do you need me to do?” Courfeyrac leaned against the table, waggling his eyebrows. It made everyone involved uncomfortable, because unlike his winking, Courfeyrac’s eyebrow-waggle was ridiculously unattractive. “Do you want me to run a meeting or something?”

****

Enjolras reached into the pocket of his jacket, and pulled out a crisp, white envelope, waving it in front of his brother’s eyes tantalizingly.“Or, even better--would you like to mail this letter for me?”

 

His face fell. “Why can’t you just...give that to a mailman?”  

****

“I can’t trust a mailman with this,” Enjolras replied instantly, sliding the letter across the table. “This is important.”

****

At the mention of something important possibly being entrusted in his (not so) humble care, Courfeyrac was suddenly very interested. He grabbed the letter greedily, looking over and and slipping the tip of his thumb under the loose seal. “What’s in it? Is it an insurance claim? A sultry love note? An envelope full of anthrax?”

  
“I don’t know.” Enjolras shrugged, frowning. “Super top-secret stuff.” He tapped the envelope to accentuate each word. “ _I_ don’t even know what’s inside it.” In fact, Enjolras knew exactly what was inside of it. It was a subscription renewal to his mother’s favorite magazine, _Guys That are Hotter Than Your Husband Monthly_.

[The Penthouse]

****

“Get your brother to deliver this,” his mother instructed, slamming the subscription card against his chest, “Tell him it’s something important.” He stared down at the paper card, and looked only a little grossed out. She gave him the ugly wink. He now looked incredibly grossed out. “And if you get it sent properly, I’ll even share.”

****

[The Model]

****

Enjolras had his own motivation for getting his brother to deliver the letter. And no, he wouldn’t be sharing steamy pinup mags with his mother. That was weird.

****

If he wanted them, which he didn’t, he’d buy his own.

****

Overall, though, C.O.T. was intrigued.  He also suspected he couldn’t return a completely frozen dove to a pet store and get the full refund he felt he was entitled to. He nodded resolutely. “I’ll mail that letter.” Enjolras nodded curtly and stood, patting his brother on the shoulder awkwardly.

****

“Good. Great. Awesome. Good for you, kid.”

****

As C.O.T. went to supposedly mail the supposed letter, Enjolras then went to confront his father, and found himself in the exact same position as he had been earlier. And like earlier, he’d prepared a speech, but had just ended up skipping to the begging and hair-pulling part right off the bat. “So,” he started confidently, “You’re not going to keep running the company from here, okay?” His father, big surprise, was licking the sweet cream between the quivering walls of yet another ice cream sandwich. Enjolras was reaching the end of his rope. “Dad,” he tried again, grabbing his arm. “Dad? Daddy?”

****

“Hm?” Mr. Thénardier glanced up from his sandwich (which he was enjoying a lot more than his son’s company).

****

“Dad.” He said it tonelessly. “Dad--I need you to cooperate with me, okay?” Mr. Thénardier shrugged,and Enjolras groaned. “Dad, I need you to tell me where the storage units are.”

****

His father sighed, and shook his head. “Look, son,” he started, leaning in close and dropping his voice to a whisper, “I’m under a lot of pressure here. I’m trying to get my newsletter off the ground. I’m trying to decide which gang to align myself with.”

****

Enjolras stared  at him blankly. “Oh, wow. Is it pledge week already? Gee, the time really does fly when you’re doing time.” Mr. Thénardier  slid a yellow legal pad across the table. It was split into a rather ironic T-chart, one reading ‘JETS PROS/CONS’ and ‘SHARKS PROS/CONS’. Apparently, the Jets were cooler than the sharks, but the sharks were full of Latin American immigrants, one of which had a daughter who he was offering as a cleaning lady for his wife if Mr. Thénardier accepted their offer. The cons of both groups consisted of ‘BIG’, ‘SCARY’, and ‘MIGHT KILL ME IF I SAY NO’.

****

“I narrowed it down to two,” he explained, “But honestly, I don’t even want to choose. I just feel...” He sighed. “I feel like the prettiest girl at the dance.”

 **  
**“That’s explainable, you know. Being stuck between desire and obligation and all that.” Enjolras scrutinized the legal pad carefully, making sure to drink in every last detail (because he was a man of detail and discretion, although, admittedly, more discretion than detail) because apparently, his father’s gang affiliations were something to care about. “Wait.” Enjolras had just realized that it wasn’t, and slid the legal pad back across the table. “I just remembered that I don’t care.” Cue his father looking dramatically offended. “I’m not here to talk about the boys who want to date you. I’m _here_ to talk to you about the fact that you’re trying to run the company from _prison_.” 

He gasped. “What? Well, I never!” he proclaimed loudly, drawing attention to their little plastic-iron table in the back of the visitation area. “Suspected of running the company?! From prison?!”

****

“Cut the shit, Dad. I don’t have the time, nor the patience.” If Enjolras had a dollar for every time he’d sighed today...”That’s why you wanted me to give M-Dog a job, isn’t it? To pay him back for burning down the storage unit?”

****

“That’s ridiculous!” His father scoffed and crossed his arms defiantly with a huff. After a few moments of tapping his foot and looking around, he muttered, “True, but ridiculous.”

****

“Yeah, well.” Enjolras slapped the table, standing up. “ I’m not hiring him. No, we don’t have the money, Pop.” Then, his father sexy-winked at him and said those seven little words that had been making his blood boil all day, and would possibly (probably) trigger spontaneous acts of uncontrollable, sudden violence and Joly-worthy panic attacks for the rest of his life.

****

“There’s always money in the banana stand.”

****

Enjolras nodded not-fondly, and not-smiled. “Ah, right,” he said, also rather not-fondly, ““The banana stand... you know, that’s exactly what this feels like.” He leaned across the table and bravely glared into his father’s eyes. “Huh? Like I’m still stuck in that hot booth all summer with you pulling the strings.”

****

At this, Mr. Thénardier rolled his eyes. “What was I going to do?” he demanded, “Do something stupid like put a kid in charge of  a frozen banana stand?”

****

Oh, ouch. Low blow. Enjolras leaned back in his chair and pretended he wasn’t slightly offended by that. “Why not?” he replied, his sass levels rising to new heights (okay, not new heights, but they were really starting to climb up there). “That’s what I did. I just made my son the” Mr. “Manager.”

****

Mr. Thénardier stared at him incredulously. “Combeferre is in charge of the banana stand.”

****

“Yes,” he replied, standing up and giving his father a sassy wrist flick. LEVEL UP! “Yes, right, yes.” He turned his back, before whipping back around and slamming his hands on the table. His father jumped. (“No touching!”) He tilted his head innocently with a smile that better matched his intentions. “You sit with that. You think about that for a while.”

****

Mr. Thénardier _did_ think about that.

 

[The Pier]

****

“Well,” started  Éponine, untying her yellow apron and pulling it over her head and hanging it on the rack in the back of the banana stand. “Now that we’ve got an employee, we can go have dinner.” In fact, they did have a new employee. They’d gotten back from a rather stimulating game of skee-ball, and he had just _appeared_ in the stand in perfect uniform, like he’d sprung into existence just while they were out. “We throw away a banana for every buck we take so no one finds out,” she explained, rolling up her sleeves. The New Employee looked at her for a moment.

 

“Wait a minute. I think you should try and do that math again.” Éponine was insulted--five minutes into his career here at the family banana stand, and The New Employee was already pissing her off. It was a new record. He deserved a medal, or a sparkly gold star that read ‘You Suck’.

****

Combeferre, on the other hand, was reaching the peak of a nervous breakdown that had probably been building since the day he was born, and had only started becoming evident on the day that his cousin kissed him at his Pop-Pop’s boat party. “Why?” he asked, tugging at his suddenly too-tight collar. “What, is it wrong or something?”

****

His cousin scoffed. “Oh my God, you can’t be serious,” she laughed, flipping her hair and glaring at The New Employee dangerously. He backed off. She was moderately satisfied. “It’s fine. He’s an arsonist, not an embezzler.”

****

Meanwhile, on his way out of the prison, Enjolras received an urgent call from his mother. He had a special ringtone whenever she called, so he would know not to pick up. It was Chopin’s “Funeral March”, something he hoped to be linking to her very, very soon, in more of a way than just his cell phone.

****

He didn’t want to pick up, but he knew that if he didn’t, she would just call him back, and he didn’t want to have to think about her more than once. So really, he had no choice. “C.O.T.’s unhappy,” she announced, and wow, Mom, what else is new?

****

He sighed, shoving his hands in his pockets. “Again?” he asked, frowning, “I tried to include him, I gave him a job.”

****

“You gave him a letter to mail.”

****

“Yes, and it was your idea!” he added, and he could almost hear her rolling her eyes. She was probably drinking, leaning against the expensive fireplace in her bathrobe that left too much to the imagination. And Joly was probably on his knees in front of her, polishing her red, three and a half-inch pumps. There was something wrong with that kid--the way he always hovered by her side and they had this weird, pseudo-incestous relationship that, if Enjolras could be arsed, he would probably consider being concerned about.  But, seeing as he didn’t really _care_ , Joly’s near-unnatural relationship with their mother seemed perfectly normal. Because he didn’t care enough to be uncomfortable about it. “What,” he asked with a snort, “Was it too difficult for him?”

 

“No, Enjolras,” she sighed, “He delivered the letter. That’s not the point.”

****

In fact, C.O.T. hadn’t mailed the letter, but, in an act of defiance, dramatically hurled the letter into the sea (or at least made a valiant attempt to). This proved to be a more difficult dramatic gesture than he had anticipated, due to the strong winds and his weak arm. Each time he attempted to throw the letter, it either flew back into his face or parasailed over his head. After many unsuccessful attempts that left him with an aching shoulder and an even more bruised self-esteem, Courfeyrac had given up, and chose instead to lie face down in the sand in an attempt to leave himself for the tide. However, it was low tide, and since he was too lazy to move, he laid there motionless for a total of three hours, the tips of the waves barely washing up against his toes.

****

“So what do you want me to about it?” Enjolras climbed onto his bike, since the family couldn’t afford a car and he was now forced to bike everywhere (not that he minded; it was healthy, and therapeutic, and a great way to spend some quality time with his son), and was having trouble balancing his briefcase, his cell phone, and his handlebars.

****

He heard his mother scoff. “Don’t take that tone.” He heard his mother huff. “He’s my son.” He heard his mother chuckle. “I want you to make him stop calling me.”

****

Meanwhile, Cosette and Éponine separately went to the same restaurant to celebrate the jobs they hadn’t actually performed, with money they hadn’t actually earned. Both of them had also brought along very unwilling dates.

****

“Did you enjoy your meal, Mom?” Cosette asked one they’d finished eating, “You sure drank it fast enough.”

  
“Not as much as you enjoyed yours,” she replied, reaching across the table and patting her daughter’s hand, the martini sloshing around in its glass. “You want your belt to buckle, dearie, not your chair.”

 

Cosette wanted to ask where Joly was, and if Mrs. Thénardier had left the umbilical cord connecting them at home today. If she hadn’t been feeling so _hurt_ , she would have. But her mother’s comment (which, for all intents and purposes, she should have been expecting, because this was what their mother was like, booze in hand or not) had actually burned her a little, and Cosette was kind of floored by the whole thing. “Okay,” she started, sighing and sipping her mineral water, “See? This is what I told Marius you’d do. Say what you will about him, at least he’s happy for me.”

 

Back in the model home, Marius still hadn’t left the shower, and was currently holding the detachable shower-head over his hair and bawling, and for reasons that will at some point be explained, wearing a grungy pair of cutoff denim shorts.

****

“You know,” Éponine commended, sucking down another straw-full of her virgin piña colada, “I don’t really feel that drunk.”

****

Combeferre was trying very, very hard to not look at her neck. “That’s”--He coughed and lowered his voice, and yet still managed to sound like a kazoo player who just sucked all of the helium out of a mylar balloon. “That’s because it’s a virgin piña colada. It...It doesn’t have any real alcohol in it.” Éponine stared at him blankly.

****

“It’s not.” She stared at her drink, and then raised her hand, flicking her wrist. “Hey, waiter? Yeah, um, is there any booze in this?” He told her that no, it wasn’t, and made an attempt to explain that a _virgin_ drink was-- “I don’t want to hear it, thanks. Can I have a virgin Bloody Mary instead? Thanks. You’re a doll.” She grinned at her cousin. “Time to get smashed.”

****

The waiter left, and it was finally time for Combeferre to make his move. Be a real man. Knock the socks off of his pretty rebel of a cousin. So he did the only thing he knew how to do; he tried to make himself sound sophisticated, and wrangle the conversation back to the money they’d stolen from the banana stand. “You know,” he whispered, watching her slug down virgin Bloody Mary after virgin Bloody Mary, fruitlessly trying to get herself drunk. “I think we might be doubling our losses here. Because, I mean, for every dollar you take, you’re actually taking two dollars because we paid for the bananas.”

****

Éponine laughed, waving the celery from her drink around for a few moments before chomping down on it. “Oh my God, you’re right!”

****

“I am?” he squeaked, reaching up instinctively to pull at his collar, “Oh, God, I’ve screwed this up!”

 

“No,” she giggled, reaching across the table to grab his hand. “ _We've_ screwed this up.”

****

The stress was really starting to get to Combeferre, and the restaurant was suddenly way too warm. “Shut up, you’re not even drunk!” he blurted, and she stared at him. “Um...Okay, we’ve gotta go.” He stood up. He sat back down. “Oh, God!” he hissed, grabbing her arm. “It’s your mom and Gangee!”

****

Sure enough, Combeferre’s aunt and grandmother were just a few tables away, hissing at one another like cats with their backs arched and hair on end. Éponine glanced over to look at them, and Combeferre yanked her back to ensure that they wouldn’t be seen. “What are they doing here?”

****

“They’re grown-ups!” Combeferre cried, “They’re allowed to have fun whenever they want! We’re kids, we’re supposed to be working!” They watched the women snipe, gripe, and argue with each other, their eyes wide with horror. They were probably talking about them, _look at that irresponsible little Combeferre, ruining his Pop-Pop’s banana stand. Look at all of the integrity he doesn’t have. And I hear that he’s lusting after his own cousin, that dirty son of a bitch. Does he have any idea how gross that is?_ He did. _Kid needs to learn to keep it in his pants, the little pervert._ He swallowed heavily. “Oh, great. Now they’re going to tell my dad and he’s going to come check the totals and know we took the money. Oh, God, this is bad.”

****

“Look,” she started, setting a hand on his arm in a half-hearted I’m sorry, but he kind of shoved her off, too busy freaking out to notice that she had her hand on his body.

****

“What are we going to do?”

****

A lot of the time, the woman was the brain of a situation, even if the Han Solo to her Leia was better at hitting the books than she could. And this was no different. Study-Smart Combeferre (who stressed himself out even when he got something as good as an A minus) was the dashing (in his opinion) hero in distress, and Éponine was the Street-Smart damsel in control. “Pop-Pop,” she suggested, crossing her legs calmly and waiting for him to ask for an explanation. He didn’t. “He’s a businessman, right? What would he do? Think, ‘Ferre. _What would Pop-Pop do_?”

 

A waitress breezed by, setting a plate of caramelized, sliced bananas in front of Cosette. “Bananas foster,” she explained, reaching down with an electric lighter and safely setting the dessert on fire. Combeferre suddenly had a brilliant idea.

****

“You might want to let that fire go out before you stick your face in it,” Mrs. Thénardier instructed, looking from the plate to her daughter disdainfully and sipping her martini with a sour expression on her face.

****

Cosette beamed, her eyes crinkling at the corners, and she put on her finest _I love you, Mama_ face, squeezing her mother’s knee from under the table. “Ah, that’s funny,” she giggled, leaning over the plate and being rather mindful of her hair. They’d already had a bad experience with hair and fire within the past twenty years, and she didn’t want to end up like Bossuet L‘Aigle “Because I was going to say, you might want to lean away from that fire since you’re soaked in alcohol.”

 

After a stunned silence, Mrs. Thénardier smiled, shrugged, drank, and replied, “Mine was better.”

****

[The Pier]

****

Meanwhile, Enjolras was meeting his new employee, who he nearly didn’t recognize without the jumpsuit. He had been walking by the banana stand, when there was greeted with a kind, neutral, “Welcome to  Thénardier Bananas, where bananas are our business.” The New Employee smiled at him politely. “May I interest you in a banana this day?”

****

“M-Dog?” he asked, squinting and stepping forward to make sure that he was right and that he wasn’t just going crazy. (In fact, he was going crazy, but this time, he was also right.) “What the hell are you doing here?”

****

M-Dog adjusted his yellow apron--he looked incredibly out of place in the banana stand--scrawny and hairy and yet happy to be there because everyone would rather be working with chocolate and bananas in a hot little capsule all day than be sitting in prison with Enjolras’ father. “Oh,” he replied, shrugging, “Your dad gave me this job.”

****

Enjolras then realized that his father had even taken control of the banana stand. But he still had some unanswered questions, so he did a little detective work. “M-Dog, can you answer a few questions for me?” he asked, leaning against the counter _Maritime-Lawyer-Peter-Pan_ style, and the former convict nodded fearlessly. “Okay, good.” He snapped his eyes up to make contact with M-Dog’s. “You burn down the storage unit?”

 

M-Dog straightened his back, looking a little chuffed. “Oh, most definitely.”

****

Angry and at a loss, and with nothing better to do, Enjolras decided to take a walk across the shorline to calm himself down, carrying his shoes under his arms and thinking about all the ways he could kill his father. He was coming down to the end of the public stretch, when he tripped over something soft, wet, and lying face down in the sand.

****

When he moved to sit up, the item he had tripped over leapt on top of him, straddling his hips and pressing his wrists into the wet sand. Enjolras blinked. “Courfeyrac?”

****

“Enj,” his brother greeted, his face dripping with globs of drying sand. There was part of a seashell in his hair. Enjolras couldn’t be arsed to point it out. “Having a nice day at the beach, while the rest of us are busting our asses to deliver your mail?”

****

“What do you want me to say?” he demanded in return, shoving C.O.T. off of him and standing up. He glared at him, brushing off his jacket. “You go and you complained to Mom, and I tried to include you.”

****

This, of course, caused C.O.T. to leap to his feet also, scowling. “Include me?” Enjolras stared at him blankly. “I should be in charge. I’m the older brother.”

****

“Well,” Enjolras started, crossing his arms, “Do you even want to be in charge?”

****

“No!” Courfeyrac huffed, crossing his arms to mirror Enjolras, before deciding that he didn’t _want_ to mirror Enjolras, flinging his arms out and nearly smacking his brother in the face. ‘I’d just like to be asked!” He began pacing madly, running a sandy hand through his sandy hair. “You know, it’s just like when we were kids and you were the only one he let work in the banana stand.”

****

This made Enjolras chuckle, and he plopped into the drier sand and sighed, picking up a fistful and watching it run through his fingers. “Well, I got news for you, Courfeyrac.” He leaned back on his elbows and set down his shoes. “Dad still doesn’t trust me to this day. Treats me like a low-level employee.”

****

Rolling his eyes and tapping into all the letdowns he'd experienced at the hand of his father, C.O.T. snorted. “It’s better than being treated like a goofball. The joker...” He flung out his arm dramatically. “The magician.”  After a long and awkward pause that involved C.O.T. holding out his arm and Enjolras staring at him, Enjolras sat up, criss-crossing his legs.

****

“I thought you were going to do like, a trick there,” he offered, frowning, “Like a fireball or something.” Courfeyrac shook his arm, as it had been getting sore; he was also trying to get the tubes in his sleeves containing lighter fluid to actually shoot out lighter fluid in order to complete his trick.

****

“ I was,” he replied almost thoughtfully, “It didn’t go off. These damn things never when you want ‘em to.”

 

Suddenly, Enjolras’ cell phone rang, and he was thankful that the ringtone this time was his usual one, not Chopin’s “Funeral March”. He fished through his pocket and finally got a hold of it. C.O.T. on the other hand, was complaining about his _least consistent trick_. “Hold on a second, okay?” He flipped open his cell phone and held it to his ear. “Hello?”

 

On  the other end of the line, there was something that sounded like a relieved sob. “H-hey, Uncle Enj...” Their voice was quivering only slightly, and there was the sound of someone wetting their lips. “It’s...it’s me, ‘Ponine.”

****

“Oh, hey, sweetheart.” Enjolras didn’t want to say that he had a bit of a soft spot for his mischievous little niece, but okay, he had a bit of a soft spot for his mischievous little niece. “Where’s your cousin?”

****

Éponine sighed shakily. “At the banana stand,” she whispered, “Uncle Enj, I’m _scared_. He’s about to do something really irresponsible.”

****

The tone of her voice made him worry, as did the weight of her words. “ _You_ think it’s irresponsible?” he asked, clambering to his feet and hopping on one foot in order to get into his shoes, “I’ll be right there.”

 

[The Pier]

****

M-Dog knew very well, as he watched Combeferre stuff the walls of the banana stand with newspaper drenched in gasoline, that he was going to be blamed for this. There was a malicious, fearful manic in the kid’s eyes that even he, after many a stint  in prison, had never before seen on the face of another human being. He soon realized that he had made a terrible mistake when he agreed to work for the Thénardier Family Enterprise.

****

Enjolras rolled up to the stand on his bicycle, which he then dropped into the street in his haste to get to his son’s side. “Combeferre?” He set a hand on the boy’s shoulder, squeezing. “Combeferre, buddy, it’s me.” He took notice of newspapers and the little tank of gasoline, and sighed. “Hey, hey...it’s alright. What the hell do you think you’re doing?”

****

“I was just, uh...” Combeferre smiled at his father brokenly, adjusting his glasses. “I was burning down the banana stand.” Before Enjolras could ask any questions, Combeferre sighed, shaking his head. “I’m sorry, Dad, I...” He dropped his arms in defeat. “I screwed it all up. I’ve no right to call myself Mr. Manager.”

****

Enjolras cringed instinctively. “Manager,” he consoled, rubbing Combeferre’s arm.

****

“Manager,” he whimpered, staring at his shoes. “I’m sorry, Dad...I am, I mean, but listen, I’ll make it up to you. I mean, I’ll work weeknights. I’ll lay people off. I’ll give up my summer, all my summers. Just, just tell me what to do, and I’ll do it.”  His eyes were watery and earnest, and Enjolras suddenly realized that he’d done to his son exactly what his father had done to him. So he came up with a solution. He smiled (and that alone was a very difficult thing to do), nudged Combeferre in the shoulder and whispered,

****

“Burn it down.”

****

Combeferre’s eyes widened. “What?” Enjolras nodded, grabbing the can of gasoline and unscrewing the cap, placing it carefully in Combeferre’s palm and closing his little (not so little now; his boy was becoming a man) around it. C.O.T., bearing the magazine subscription that he was supposed to deliver several hours ago, rode up on their segway to join them.

****

Enjolras wrapped an arm around each of their shoulders. “Let’s burn this son of a bitch.” Combeferre stepped forward and lit the match, and the fire started off as a slow, gentle burn. Courfeyrac, desperate to be included in the activities, rolled up to the blazing banana stand and tore up the letter, tossing it into the flames. Enjolras smirked smugly with pride, and for once, he didn’t have the heart to stop him. He rubbed Combeferre’s neck affectionately. “It’s going to be our summer ever, buddy.”

****

And so, Enjolras, his son, and his brother, together enjoyed the cathartic burning of the banana stand. And yes, M-Dog totally got blamed for it.

 

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> -Yes, Montparnasse is M-Dog. You aren't allowed to judge me.  
> -In the original series, Maeby and George Michael call George Sr. and Lucille 'Pop Pop' and 'Gangee', and I therefore decided to keep those names for means of authenticity.  
> -I'm really sorry these are so long. I think they'll end up getting shorter as they go along, adding more scenes to the 'follow up' chapters that didn't make it into the 'episode'.  
> -Also, thank you so much for the reads and kudos! Special shout outs and thank yous to users auspiciousauthor and remolupin, as well as the three other guests that left kudos on this work! (ﾉ◕ヮ◕)ﾉ*


	4. Chapter 4

_In the next installment of **Footage Not Found** , Enjolras visits his father in jail, where he proudly delivers the news that he, Combeferre, and C.O.T. had burned down the banana stand._

****

His father stared at him. “You what?” Enjolras smirked proudly.

****

“Burned it right down to the ground,” he whispered, leaning back and crossing his arms. Finally, he’d gotten to show his Dad who’s boss.

****

“Are you crazy?!” Mr.Thénardier squeaked , running his hands over his face and counting to ten, “There was money in that banana stand.”

****

“Well, it’s all gone now, Dad, and it was my decision.” Enjolras had never been so proud of himself--he decided that, when he was done establishing dominance over and publicly humiliating his father, he would go for a bike ride with his son and buy himself a vanilla ice cream. “ So next time you want to have a little power struggle, just remember that you’re playing with fire.”

****

“There was two hundred and fifty thousand dollars in that banana stand.” At first, Enjolras laughed, because his father was probably messing with him. Mr. Thénardier didn’t start laughing alongside him, and Enjolras laughed alone for an uncomfortably long time.

****

Finally, he began to calm down, and the weight of the words finally set in. His heart crashed to the ground, and his facial expression seemed to fall with it. “What.”

****

“Cash, Enjolras!”

****

He opened his mouth. He closed it. He spluttered unintelligibly for several moments. “Why didn’t you tell me that?”

 

The counting to ten wasn’t working. Mr. Thénardier took a deep breath and stood up, closing his eyes for a moment. “How much clearer can I say...” He grabbed his son by the neck, squeezing and shaking him furiously. “ _There’s always money in the banana stand_!”

****

“No touching!” screamed one of the guards, and Mr. Thénardier dropped Enjolras and thrusted his arms into the air.

****

“No touching!” he screamed back, and he and the guard continued to scream at each other until Enjolras had made his escape.

****

“No touching!”

 

“No touching!”

 

“No touching!”

 

“No touching!”

 

_Enjolras has his first real conversation with his older brother._

 

“Women just feel safe around you, you know?” C.O.T. asked, sitting beside Enjolras in the sand and building a half-assed sandcastle over his brother’s feet. “Like they can just, I dunno, say _anything_." He thought for a moment, and shrugged. "Maybe it’s because you’ve only had sex four times.”

 

“Four _women_ , Courfeyrac, not four times.”

 

_Cosette ends up sleeping through her new job._

_  
_The answering machine down in the kitchen beeped with a red, angry sound. "Look, Cosette, I'm sorry. We're going to have to try someone else." A sigh. "Just my luck."

 

_And Marius, the next in line for the position, doesn't hear the phone ring, as he is too busy crying in the bathtub._

 

I promise I'll explain the cutoffs.

_And Courfeyrac protests the pet store’s unfair frozen-dove exchange policy._

 

“Come back from whence you came!” he screamed, throwing the frozen dove into the ocean. A small stream of lighter fluid squirted out from his sleeve. “Damn it!” he hissed, whacking at his sleeve as it began to catch on fire, “Now it works!”


End file.
